INTRODUCTION

Good morning everyone. My name is Matt Martinez, and I’m the location pastor for Renovation Church Shoreview.

I recently saw a video that measured how we spend time over the course of an average human lifespan. It said we spend about 20 years and 3 months sleeping—which feels generous, because my kids have taken a lot of that from me.

Then it said we spend 10 years and 5 months watching TV, and I thought, ‘I don’t care for that.’

The video continued, saying we spend roughly the same amount of time scrolling on our phones, and I thought, ‘alright, this is officially bad.’

And finally, it said we spend on average three months of our lives sitting at red lights. And I thought, ‘that’s it—something needs to change right now.’

Since watching that video, I’m proud to say I’ve made some adjustments.

I haven’t stopped at one red light.

Videos like the one I watched are sometimes subjective and can be a little dramatic- and, I promise, I follow the rules of the road. But the video made me realize something deeper: Most of us don’t lose moments our lives all at once. We lose them little by little when we stop paying attention to what really matters.

And that matters, because almost all of us—regardless of what we believe about God—feel the weight of trying to make the right decisions in life and not wanting to waste it.

We wonder:

What should I do after I graduate?
Is the person I’m dating right for me?
Am I doing the right thing with my kids—or am I messing them up?

Do I want to invest my time here or there?

For Christians, these questions often come with another layer:
What does God want me to do?
Is God trying to tell me something?
How do I know if this is God speaking to me, or just me speaking to me?

Today’s passage deals with those questions—through the story of a man who was unsure, unqualified, and hesitant… and yet, became central to a very important story in the Bible.

Please turn in your Bibles to Exodus 3:1-14. If you are using the Renovation Church Bibles, you can find our passage on page 39.

In our passage today, we are jumping into the story of Moses. Moses’ life didn’t start with a lot of clarity or confidence.

As a baby, his life was threatened, so
he was hidden, then given away by his family.
Then he was adopted into Egyptian royalty.
Later, he tried to help his people—but he did it the wrong way and he became a fugitive.
As a fugitive, he spent 40 years working as a shepherd. And at the age of 80, after a lot of life lived, God met him in a most inexplicable way.

And this is where our passage begins.

Let’s read now, Exodus 3, starting in verse one. We will begin reading where you see the big number three on page 39 near the bottom.

Exodus 3:1-3

1 Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. 3 So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.”

For those who are trying to discern the best pathway forward on big or small decisions, this passage offers a few ways in which you can discover what God may be trying to say to you today. And the first way to discover this is to:

I. Notice where God already is.

Our passage begins with Moses doing his job. It’s an ordinary day. It’s ordinary work.

Then he notices something strange—a bush that’s burning but not being consumed.

Here’s the detail that matters: God doesn’t speak until Moses turns aside to look.

For those of us trying to figure out what to do with our lives, this matters more than we think.

Research tells us our most valuable resource isn’t our time, it isn’t our money—it’s our attention. That’s why so many apps are free. We’re not the customer—we’re the product. Where our attention goes, our time and money follows. And if we give enough attention to something, what we believe begins to shift there too.

It is very difficult to gain clarity from God when we are not attentive to God.

But there is hope even here, because the Bible shows us that God will do whatever it takes to present himself to us in the ordinary, and in the temptations, or in the distractions of life.

The Bible has plenty of stories where God often gets His people’s attention through what we might call “burning-bush moments”.

Some of these moments could be:

• An inexplicable person who shows up at the right time with the right word of encouragement.
• These moments could be a conviction through hearing God’s Word or a holy discomfort that won’t go away
• They could be a success that somehow still feels empty, and so we begin looking to find something or someone who can sustain us.
• Burning bush moments could even be a trouble that shatters the illusion of control

A number of years ago, I went to visit a woman in the hospital. She had recently been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. Tumors throughout her body. It was a shock because, before this, she was healthy. She worked out, ate right, worked hard. And as I sat by her bed and processed this with her, she said something profound to me, “All of this doesn’t make sense. All the things that used to define me don’t define me anymore. But now, I have the opportunity to let God say who I am. He is my Good Shepherd.” Her suffering became her burning bush- a place where she met God.

You can meet God in your suffering too.

Sometimes, the burning bush moments are not inexplicable or extreme, they are ordinary. About a year ago, I sat down with a friend and talked to him about how I was wondering what God had next for me and my family. He just looked at me and said, “This is your burning bush moment, Matt. Look for God? What areas do you see Him present and working? Just pay attention to those places.”

How can we determine what is right and how God is directing us? We have to look around and find God in places that God may already be.

Exodus 3:4-10

4 When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!”

And Moses said, “Here I am.”

5 “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” 6 Then he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.

7 The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. 8 So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. 9 And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. 10 So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”

On the pathway to discerning what decision God is asking you to do, we must begin with:

II. Reverence then Responsibility

When Moses turns aside to look at the bush, God speaks, and God’s first instruction isn’t action—it’s reverence.

God says to Moses, “Do not come any closer. Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.”

Before Moses is given a mission, he is shown who he is meeting with.

It doesn’t take much time for anyone to realize that I am kinetic by nature. I love to move—physically, mentally. My brain is always going, and I like it when I am able to make decisions quickly.

But my son has been teaching me another way of life.

Sometimes, our family is late getting ready. Or we are waiting in the Target drive-up lane and it is Christmas time so it is taking forever. Or we are stuck in traffic for no reason that I can see. And because we are not moving, I’m stressed and frustrated because things are not going the way I would like them to go.

And in those stressful moments, my son will lean back in his seat, put his hands behind his head, and say, “Ah… this is the life.”

And every time, I think, we are living in completely different realities.

Often, we’re so eager to do the right thing, make the right decision, fix the situation, that we forget to stop and remember why any of it matters. We forget who we are living for. We forget who gave us the ability to do any of this in the first place.

We rush into responsibility without reverence.

God slows Moses down because Moses needs to know:
This moment isn’t just another task.
This isn’t just a decision.
This is a meeting with the living God.

This isn’t a distant God giving instructions from afar. This is a God who steps into our world and our lives. This is a God who sees the suffering of people, and who commits Himself to rescuing His people. When God shows up in your life—through a moment, through a question, or a disruption—it’s not because He wants to burden you. It’s because He wants to be with you, transform you and then give you strength and courage to share your story with someone else.

God shows up in Moses’ life, and it is a powerful moment. But this moment isn’t just for him. God’s concern is for His people who are suffering.

We, who have been called by God, have a mission to fulfill. We must share the good news of Jesus with others. We must point them to the God who saves and who transforms.

For those, who resonate with that and are trying to figure out how to do it. We have so many opportunities here. Get involved serving here or at a location- two coming next year, one in spring (Shoreview) and one in the fall. Or jump in here at Blaine, our crew team sets out Bibles every single service- making sure people have easy access to the Word of God. Our cafe team serves wonderful coffee and donuts to get that caffeine and sugar rush right before service (I always get my free coffee at 8am). Our Renovation Kids team teaches kids and provides a space where they can see that God is with them. Sign up. Be a part of this. We all play a role in helping people know Jesus.

When you think about serving here at church or trying to determine what God asks you to do in this world, it is normal to be excited but also to feel overwhelmed or stressed or unqualified when facing the calling of God. Moses felt that way too when God spoke to him, let’s take a look:

God has just called Moses to be the person to free the Israelites from slavery in Egypt.

Exodus 3:11-14

11 But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”

12 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.”

13 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?”

14 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.’”

There may be a lot of questions and concerns and caveats when facing the call of God, but if we turn our attention on God, our questions change

III. From “Who am I?” to “Who is God?”

In passages like this, I like to put myself in the place of a person in the story. So let’s step into Moses’ shoes and think about the reality of what God is asking Moses to do… I want you, Moses, to go with all your little sheep and challenge the leader of a superpower country. I think Moses responds exactly how we would expect:

Moses says:

“Who am I?”
“What if they don’t believe me?”
“I’m not skilled enough.”

We may sometimes say the same things when God calls us:
“I’m not that kind of person.”
“I like my life the way it is.” “I’m too busy”
“I don’t know how this will turn out.”

Typically, in our culture, when we come to something difficult, we try to get past it by reinforcing who WE are. People tell us, "Don't worry, YOU can do this! YOU are strong! YOU are Brave! YOU are Beautiful!" And we think we'll get through the storm if we just work on our self-talk and press into how great and unique we really are. Encouragement has its place—but encouragement alone collapses when the task is bigger than you.

The way we get through hard things is not by reinforcing WHO WE ARE, but by reminding ourselves WHO GOD IS!

The question isn’t “Who am I?”
The real question is “Who is God?”

God doesn’t say, “I am what you want.”
God says, “I AM who I AM.”

Hudson Taylor: “God wants to give you something far better than riches and gold—or personal charisma or talent—and that is helpless dependence upon him.”

Years ago, I led a group of college kids on missions trip. And as some of you may know, you have to raise money to go on the trip. The night before we had to make a big payment for the trip, one particular woman on the team called me really late, I had already fallen asleep. And when I picked up the phone, she was crying because she didn’t have the money, and she was sad because she wouldn’t be able to go. I asked her, “did you feel like God wanted you to go on this trip? She said she felt God call her. I then said, “If God calls, then God will provide. Let’s pray and trust God and then go to sleep, because we can’t do anything else tonight.”

I’ll admit that is kind of a crazy answer to give someone, I blame it on being woken up out of a dead sleep at 2am in the morning.

The next morning, we gathered for the meeting to pay for the trip, and she didn’t show up. I was pretty sad about that. But as we were finishing, she ran into the room. She ran right up to me and threw a bunch of money on the table. She said, “you won’t believe what happened. I went to my mailbox this morning, and in it was an envelope filled with the exact amount of money I needed, right down to the penny.”

Now, I am not sure how God will always work in our lives, and while I am happy to pray for provision for any of you. I do not know exactly how God will show up in your life. But I do know that He will show up.

God is the initiator and the supplier of the call on our lives.
If He calls, He equips.
If He sends, He sustains.

It is a guarantee that on the journey with God, we will have discouragement. We will feel unqualified. We will make mistakes on what we think should do, (like running all of the red lights we stop at). Our lives will be so full, we believe there is no way we should keep serving and obeying. But we serve the God and Creator of the universe. We can trust the God who is faithful day after day, year after year, century after century. We serve a God who gave His life for us and is with us. And our mission is to follow Jesus no matter what and teach others to do the same.

For many today, that is the call God has placed on your life.

Gospel Invitation

For some, the call today is actually salvation.

The same God in Moses’ story is the God calling you today. Do not walk past this moment of making Jesus the Lord of your life. You may be feeling the call to draw close to Jesus right now.

In John 3:16, it says that God loved the world so much that He sent His Son Jesus to die on a cross for our sins. Our sins deserve punishment, and so God sent Jesus to take that punishment on himself. So that if we would believe in Jesus, and receive the grace that is given to us by God, we would be saved and given eternal life in heaven with God.

Today, I want to give you the opportunity to take all the sin and wrong you have done and put it on Jesus. I want to invite everyone to close their eyes, bow your heads. If you want to give your life to Jesus, to experience forgiveness and have Jesus be the Savior of your life, in a moment I am going to invite you to raise your hand.

Perhaps over the last few weeks, you have been thinking about this decision and you know it is time. This is your chance. If you would like to answer the call God has been giving to you and give your life to Jesus. Raise your hand. If you want to turn from your sins, and embrace the saving grace of God, raise your hand. If you want to give up your old way of thinking and living, and instead have Jesus be the Lord of your life, raise your hand.

Everyone can keep their eyes closed. For those of you with hands raised, I want to pray with you because the Bible says that this is an important moment: that we believe in our hearts and confess with our mouths that Jesus Christ is Lord.

Whether you have prayed this prayer before or not, I invite everyone to pray this with me (repeat after me):

Dear God,

I confess to you.

That I have sinned against you.

But God I believe,

that you sent your Son Jesus

To take my place

And God, I thank you

For forgiving my sins

And now I commit to following you

With my life.

The worship team is going to sing one final song. If you just raised your hand, and prayed this prayer for the first time. I am going to come back up after the song is done to tell you about what you could do next.