Desert Survival Series Pt 9- Moses the Servant of God — Don Courville

Moses' Call and First Excuse

Exodus chapter 3, this is our desert survival series, how to survive in the desert, and the title of it is Moses the servant of God. And we're up now to verse 11, let's read verses 10 and 11 and 12 for today, and then we'll have a word of prayer.

Exodus chapter 3, verse 10, Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt. And Moses said unto God, Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt?

And he said, Certainly I will be with thee, and this shall be a token unto thee, that I have sent thee, when thou hast brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this mountain. Let's bow for a word of prayer.

Father again, we pray that you would bless the preaching of your word, that the Spirit of God would speak to our hearts, for it's in Jesus' name we pray, amen. This is the beginning of Moses' five excuses that he gives to God why he can't go, and deliver Israel out of the promised land.

A most interesting thing, it actually reveals five fears in the life of Moses. I don't know about you, but I am enjoying this series, because God is teaching me as I go along. He's teaching me things about Moses, but he's teaching me things about myself.

And I believe this is why God is maybe blessing you through this series. Not so much as the preaching, it's just that the Spirit of God is taking the word of God, and putting it down where we can use it.

And I believe a lot of this is so plain that we can just apply our own illustrations. We can just see where it fits into our own unique situation. And as I was before the Lord this week, actually I started on this Monday, I got before the Lord Monday on it, and I looked at some books and stuff, but I just wasn't getting anything out of it, and I think it was Tuesday, that God just showed me something that I hadn't seen before, and that was this, that these five excuses were nothing more but five fears that Moses had in his life, and I'd never seen that before.

And then along with that, God revealed to me, I said, Lord, there's got to be something in the New Testament that would parallel this, and sure enough, I found that with these five excuses, God gave five promises, and that in the Great Commission, when Jesus said go into all the world and preach the gospel, disciple nations, remember that?

There's five main things that correspond right along with this, and so it's an interesting study as we go through this, and I'm going to take a little time on it, today we'll probably just cover the first excuse, and then we'll take a little time and we'll look at the promise that God gives.

Today we'll just look at the excuse, and the next week we'll have to get God's promise. But I was thinking of something that was said about Jesus, it was actually a prophecy by Zacharias, which was a prophecy about Christ, that when he came, he would bring salvation, and then in Luke, verse 1 and 44, it said this, that he would grant unto us that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our life.

And what that is saying, when Jesus Christ delivers us, it's so that we can serve him without fear. And so if there's a fear in your life, there's a flaw in your faith. As long as there is fear, there's a flaw in your faith.

So anything that I'm afraid of, reveals that I've got a flaw there in my life. Fear is focusing on my ability, or my inability, excuse me. If I have a fear, it is me focusing on my inability. Faith is me focusing on God's ability.

If you've got a fear, you're looking at yourself. If you've got faith, you're always looking at God. We never get faith by looking at ourselves. We get afraid, you know. So that's probably the main statement of this whole thing.

Fear is focusing on my inability, it will produce fear if you look at yourself. Well I can't do that, God, I can't make it through this desert. It looks too dry and too barren. But we look to God and we make it.

Taking Up the Cross of Fear

Now let's see what we can learn from Moses. Five excuses, or really I'm going to call them his five fears. And what God offers in exchange for his fears. Actually we're learning the crucified life, and if we were to take it over into that terminology, each one of these fears would be a cross.

Remember Jesus said, take up your cross and follow me? Your cross may be a burden that God is allowing you to carry for him. Your own particular burden. No one may have one like yours, or others may have one like yours.

But it's something that you bear for Christ. And so these fears, I think God wants Moses to turn them into a cross. Something that he just will nail his fear to. He will die to it, and he will just let God do what he wants to do.

And that's what he wants us to do too. He wants us to take our fears, nail it to the cross. The first fear, let me go through this before we take off. As Moses said, Lord, who am I? He said, who am I that I should go unto Pharaoh and that I should bring forth the children of Israel?

The first fear is a lack of ability. He lacks his ability. God's promise is his presence. He gives him a promise. The command that Christ gave in the New Testament was his presence. The same thing. Christ promised his presence to us and also to Moses.

The second fear, when we get to verse 13. Verse 13, is a lack of authority. And so God gives him a promise, that's his name. He says, I've got my name here. You don't need a master card or a credit card.

You've got my name. You speak in my name. And Christ said that we would go in his name. In Matthew 28, in the commission. Then the third is in chapter 4, in verse 1. The third fear that he had was a lack of acceptance.

He said, they won't believe me. I'm going to go in there and they're not going to believe what I say. And he says, my promise is I'm going to give you power. So that they will believe you. And the Lord gave us his power also.

In the command, in the commission. And then 4 .10 is the fourth one. A lack of address. There's a lack of ability, a lack of authority, a lack of acceptance. Now a lack of address. Lord, I can't speak.

You know, you ever told that? You told that to God? Lord, I can't tell others about you. I don't get all tongue tied. I don't know what to say. I can't speak. Well, God tells him, my spirit will work through you.

I'll put my words in your mouth. And this is what the Lord has done for us. He's given us his word. He promised him his spirit to Moses. And that his words would be produced through him. He had just given that in his mind to say.

And the Lord gave us his word also. And then the last thing, the last fear, he says, is just a lack of allegiance. A lack of ability, a lack of authority, a lack of acceptance, a lack of address, and a lack of allegiance.

He said, Lord, I don't want to go get somebody else. That is a lack of allegiance. Now what God has done for us is, God said, I'm going to give you a substitute, Moses. And that's going to be Aaron. Well, God has given us a substitute too.

And I believe it's the Holy Spirit. First of all, I put down that there is no substitute for us. Because I thought, well, if we don't do it, if we don't go, then nobody's going to do it. And in a sense, that's true.

But God has given us the spirit. That is our substitute. And with that, there's no excuse. And then after that, we'll see how God got a little angry at Moses. And we've got to be careful that we don't push God with our excuses, our fears.

Moses' Failure and the Fear of Inability

Now, let's take off today and look at this first fear, this lack of ability. Because Moses says, who am I? In verse 10, the Lord came down and he said, I'm going to send you. They've been waiting for a deliverer.

And Moses knew he was to be the deliverer, but he had blown it because he tried to do it in the flesh. And now after 40 years in the desert where God has emptied Moses of self, and he comes back and he says, okay, we're going to go.

Moses is so emptied of self that God has to encourage him and push him. And it's almost the way that we are. We're so boisterous of ourselves. We're so gung-ho. And then when Christ gets a hold of us and we find out that we're really not so hot, then he has to rebuild us again and retrain us.

And then we have to learn that we do have to go and we do have to speak and we do have to live. But he has to live through us. And this is what Moses is learning. Actually, the crucified life. Remember, Moses is still at the burning bush.

And what did the burning bush symbolize? The cross. He's still, this is his cross experience. Now, he says, Lord, who am I? You know actually what he is saying? I'm a failure. Lord, I am a failure. I've already failed.

The hardest thing for us to do is to go back where we failed. Think of your greatest failure in life. Wouldn't it be hard to go back again? If it would fit in and if you could do that. Maybe you failed before somebody to share Christ with them.

Maybe they died or something. But maybe you shared Christ with somebody and they just laughed and you really got all tangled up in something. Wouldn't it be hard to go back again? Well, this is actually what's happening to Moses.

He says, I want you to go back. And Moses is saying, I'm a failure. But Jesus said to us, he says, I am the vine, you're the branches. He that abideth in me and I in him, the same bring forth much fruit.

For without me you can do nothing. Without me you will fail. So actually he's saying, let's do it again, Moses. Only let's do it my way. You know, deserts are good for a couple of things. One, I found out that my trials, my experiences, my deserts are good for revealing my flaws and my fears.

Trials Reveal Flaws and Teach Dependence

I had something happen this week. We had two things happen. One on the house. But one thing on the house before the good news was the bad news. And that was, we were supposed to get a $200 deposit. Well, it was late because our relative was in the hospital.

We didn't know it. And when it showed up, it was about $70 short. My first reaction was flesh. Rah! Where's the rest of it? And then I got a phone call and he explained. He had had to do some stuff to get the abstract ready and everything.

But I've learned, I've got a flaw. I react too quick in these areas. Especially in financial areas. So these things are good for revealing my flaws. I don't like a flaw. Do you? I believe God lets us be tested so he can say, this is the real you.

In the raw. And it's very ugly, isn't it? And God says, I want you to crucify that. I want your reactions to be slower. To these trials. And here's something else. Deserts are good for making you face yourself.

They really make you face you for what you really are. Some guy may come out with all his karate blows and everything. And all his grunts and groans. And he's really tough. He really thinks he's something.

Until you throw him into a pit with a lion. And you don't think he's too much anymore. He wants to practice his footwork now. You know, he wants to make some tracks. We always think we're tough. But it seems like we always face something that's tougher than us.

We think we can handle it. And this is the philosophy of the world. We can do it. We can handle it. But we can't. And so God lets these things come along to show us. You can't handle it. Without me, you're nothing.

Without me, you're a failure. So Moses is still focusing on himself. And God is going to answer him. And he says, listen. This time you're going to have me with you. And we're going to pass. We're not going to fail.

You know, it's just like a little girl that I know. Comes up. Wants to tie her shoes. She's got some knots there. And Daddy says, let me help you out. No, Daddy, I can get it. About ten minutes later, you know what happens.

She comes back and the thing is almost hopelessly tied up in knots. You almost need to get the scissors out. This is the way we are. We get something and we say, I can handle it. I can do it. And then after we get our life in such a mess, we're all tied up in a knot.

Then we come back to God. God wants us to learn to just rely on him for everything. From the beginning to the start. Without Christ, we can't help but fail. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 3 .5,. Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God.

This is totally opposite to what everything we're being fed on TV and in the world is. Totally opposite. The whole world says you're something. We're something. The world's something. We're really great.

And then we have a space shuttle blow up. It humbles us. We realize that we're just almost nothing. We're fragile. And all of a sudden then we turn to God. And God has said, you should have acknowledged me from the very start.

Contentment in Every Circumstance

Well, these deserts, these past failures produce fears. And fear is a lack of faith. Just a simple thing. Next week, by way of introduction, I'm going to get you into the basis of what is a lack of fear.

What is the bottom thing? What is the heart of a fear? We'll get into that next week. But it has to do with faith or our trust in God. I want to share a little something with you. You can write it down.

It's a verse that we claim. Many Christians claim this. How many of you know Philippians 4 .13? I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. How many of you have heard that? How many of you have quoted that?

How many of you have used that? Do you know what comes before that? You say, no, I don't know what comes before that. But I knew something was coming. Here, let me share with you what comes before that phrase where Paul said, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

In verse 11, he said, Not that I speak in respect of want, for I have learned in whatsoever state I am, whatever desert I am in. He said, I have learned, therefore, I have learned to be content. I have learned to be content.

That's one I haven't mastered yet. And then he said, I know both how to be abased and I know how to abound. He said, I know how to live if I've got a lot, and I know how to live if I've got a little. But you know what happens if we've got a lot?

We just sort of forget God. One of the problems with getting a lot is you forget God. But then he says, I know how to live when I don't have anything, too. He says, no matter if I've got a lot or a little, I will not forget God.

He says, so I know both how to be abased, I know how to abound in everywhere and in all things. I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

There is a crucified man. There is a man that is dead to self. If God comes along to him and he says, Paul, I want your banking account. Paul would say, here God, you've got it. Everything, and he closes it out.

If God comes along and says, Paul, I want you to go down to the bottom of Africa. Paul says, I'm on my way, Lord. He just never argues with God. A man that is crucified in Christ does not argue with his master.

But what happens? We try to hang on to our life, our time, our little plans, our little business, our little job, our little this or that. It's our, our, my, my, me, me, my, my, misery, misery, misery.

It's what it all produces. And then we say, I can do all things through Christ, except I can't be abased. And I can do all things through Christ, except I can't have that taken away from me. And we're not a crucified man.

Well, Paul learned to be a crucified man and so did Moses. But it took some time with Moses and I think it's taken a little time with us. Well, one of the things now that we're going to learn from Moses, and I'm learning it over and over again, is that Moses liked to slip back into the past.

Fear Lives in the Past, Faith Lives in the Present

That's exactly what a fear is. He's slipping back into the past. I was looking at that. He says, who am I that I should go and that I should deliver? Lord, I'm looking in the past. I can't do it because I was a failure in the past.

And he had a fear because he was living in the past. You want to know something about fear? Fear lives in the past. Fear will ruin your present. If you've got a fear, and I've had these things coming up to me, even this week.

Sometimes your mind gets to thinking about things. And you get to worrying. Worry is nothing more than a symptom of your fear. But, but fear lives in the past. Here's what lives in the present and here's what lives in the future.

Faith. Faith lives in the present. Fear will destroy your present. Faith lives in the present and the future. Faith commands the present. And faith commands the future. If you've got fear, it destroys your present living.

It destroys your life. It destroys your joy. It destroys, it just destroys your life. And Moses said, Lord, I'm living in the past. And God's answer is, listen. How about if I go with you this time? And there won't be any snags and there won't be any flaws.

And Pharaoh's not going to push you around. He's going to do some this and this and this and this. But when it's all over, Pharaoh's going to be a broken man. And you're going to be leading the children of Israel out of bondage into freedom.

Let's do it my way this time. And so God says in verse 12, after Moses gave him his excuse, he said, certainly I will be with thee. What more do you need? He says, I want you to go, but I'm going to be with you.

And it's a very simple thing. I know another little girl. You say, go downstairs to her. And she says, Daddy, it's dark down there, you know. But what if I go with you? Well, that'll be fine. We hold hands and we go down.

And the dark is no problem as long as Daddy is with the little girl. Now, what's the difference between us? We say, this desert is awfully dark. I don't see the other end of the tunnel. Things look pretty bad.

And Jesus says, Lo, I'm with you always. And we forget it. He never leaves us, but the fact that we forget him allows a fear to come in, and we get to worry about the present and even in the future. And it's not that Moses is going to go, but who's going to go with him, you know.

It's like the little boy. He gets in a little scrap with some more kids, and he says, You guys wait right here. I'll be back. And you know what he's doing. He's going home to get Daddy, you know. It's my day I can whip you.

Well, Moses, I'll go with you. Will that make a difference? In our Christian life, when we invite Christ to come in, Christ says, I'm going to go with you. Everywhere you go, I'll go. You go to church, I'm going to go to church with you.

You go to the bar, I'm going to go to the bar with you. Well, we're not going to have fun in the bar. We'll have fun in church. And he said, I'm going to make sure you don't have fun in some places, because there's some places that will mar our fellowship, and I'm going to disciple you.

I'm going to train you to fellowship with me. I'm going to teach you that some things you do in your life will mar our fellowship. It will block off the joy of our relationship. And if you really love me, you'll let those things go.

You'll let them go. You need to let fear go, because fear doesn't help your faith at all. I was looking for that song, I Can Face Tomorrow. I wanted to read that, but I don't know where it is. It just sounded like it might go in pretty good here.

God's Presence as the Answer to Fear

Well, God's saying to Moses two things here. When He says, My presence will go with you, He says, You've tried in your strength, now try in Mine. In Philippians 4 .13, we claim the promise, but fail to realize that the promise was born out of Paul's trials.

Now, another thing, He said, My presence, not only will we do it My way, we've tried it your way, it didn't work. He says, My presence will take care of your fear. Because what was Moses afraid of? He was afraid of another failure.

He says, My presence will take care of your fear. And it really will. It's just a simple thing. My presence will take care of your fear. Do you know that when a guy... Jerry's coming next week, he's a pilot.

I've heard this about pilots. When a pilot comes down, if he crashes or has a bad landing, that they don't want to go back up and do it again. You ever heard that? That's the way with a lot of things in life.

If you fail in some area, you don't want to go back. I remember the last time I tried a two and a half flip. That was a flop. You know what a two and a half flip is? It's a lot of stuff before you go 15 foot to the water.

A flip, you start off and you go all the way around. You're back up like that. That's one. You come back around and that's two. And then you go back again and you dive in head first. I remember I was in Pineville, Louisiana.

The last time I tried that, it was a two and a quarter. Which means when I hit the water, I was like that. I was really traveling. I was really spinning. But I caught about like that. It was a real, excuse the expression, it was a real bad experience.

And it really did about knock me out. I laid around in the water for about ten minutes just thinking that over. It really hurt. You know what? I've never to this day tried a two and a half flip again.

That just cured me of it. Matter of fact, I don't even do flips anymore. One and a half or anything. But that type of experience in your life, you try to witness to somebody and you fail, and you don't go back again, then you're defeated.

Your whole life of being a witness for Christ. Many times God takes us and He will retrain us and He'll send us right back to where we fell. Now somebody was training me to dive. After they got me put back together again, they put me back on that board.

But nobody did and I didn't go back up on my own either. Oh boy, smart enough to know. One time's good enough for that. What about in your life? Look at something. Look at an experience you've had. Aren't you maybe a little afraid to go back again and try it?

This is what God is saying to Moses. Let's do it my way now. Let me share something with you in Hebrews. Hebrews chapter 13 verse 5 and 6. You remember when He said, let your conversation, that's actually your lifestyle, He said, let your conversation be without covetousness.

He says, be without covetousness and be content with such things as you have. For He says, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. Actually, God's taught me some lessons this week that I needed to and maybe I'll share them later.

I won't do it now. On greed. We've been trying to sell a house and I think God showed me, you greedy rascal, you've been trying to get too much and this is why you hadn't sold it back in the beginning.

I could have made some money off of it at the beginning, but people always try to sell too high and now we've got to just clear out. As a realtor says, we'll get enough for a hamburger and a cup of coffee.

But whenever we're greedy, we're saying, God, you can't take care of me. I've got to help myself a little bit. And God says this here, just be content with what you have and I'll take care of you. So that we may boldly say in verse 6, the Lord is my helper.

I will not fear what man shall do unto me. Isn't that good? Do you believe it? Listen to this. Over in verse 20, I like this. I'm going to give you a little bit of Greek. And I'm not a Greek. More Frenchman.

And German. A little Irish with the temper. But he says, listen, Now the God of peace, verse 20, that brought you again from the dead, our Lord Jesus Christ, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, listen to this, make you perfect in every good work to do His will.

Do you know what that word perfect means? I like this because what it means, it says to make correct adjustments. And he says, If you'll just let me be the Lord in your life, as we go along, I will make the correct adjustments in your life.

And that's what His presence will do for Moses. Moses wasn't perfect. All that desert did was just empty him of self, and he didn't have any confidence anymore. And the Lord says, Now come on, let's go along.

And as we go along, my presence will make correct adjustments in your life. But you have to abide in me, and I in you. As Jesus said, You abide in me and I in you, the same shall bring forth much fruit.

For without me you'll do nothing. Without me you'll do something all right, you'll make a lot of mistakes, but it won't be any fruitful things. It won't be anything that will be in profit. It will be damaged.

And so I like that. To make correct adjustments. It says, Make you perfect in every good work to do His will, working in you that which is well-pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to Him be glory forever and ever.

Confession, Repentance, and Restitution

Actually, if we would just say, God, today I am yours. As we go, day by day, moment by moment, we'll go together, and you make the correct adjustments. Now there's something that we have to do. And I want to say this before we close up, and that's this.

The Bible says very clearly, the Bible says in Proverbs 28, 13, He that covereth his sins shall not prosper, but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy. If you've got a sin in your life that the Spirit of God has definitely pointed out to you, and you do not deal with it, you will not prosper.

I don't know what your sin is, but I know what mine is. And when God speaks to me, I know that I might as well get it taken care of right then. Because from that point when I sin and do not confess it and deal with it, there will be nothing but trouble.

And that's where our hypocrites come in. A hypocrite is a Christian that is pretending to be a Spirit-filled Christian when he's got a sin in his life. You will mar your life, you will mar those around you.

You cannot hide it either. It gets out. He that covereth his sins shall not prosper. It's just like the little kid, you know, he got into something and he went and buried it in the garden, and then the next spring, here it is sprouting up, the thing that he'd stole.

I forget what it was, some kind of plant or something, and all the evidence was there. Oh, I remember what it was. It was the rag doll, one of his little sisters. He got it, he tore it up, and it was filled with beans.

He went and buried it in the garden, and here's all these beans sprouting up. It's just like that in your life. You're going to have sprouts come up somewhere. And he says, take care of it, because if you don't, you will be a failure and we won't walk very well together.

Serving God in Freedom

Well, God said to Moses, He says, I'll go with you, and then there's one other thing He said in closing up. Listen. He says, certainly I will be with thee, and this shall be a token unto thee that I have sent thee when thou hast brought forth the people out of Egypt.

You shall serve God upon this mountain. You shall serve God upon this mountain. I don't have time to get into it, but let me share a little something with you on that. This has intrigued me, and I'm digging in there a little more.

Maybe we'll start off there next week. But God said, this will be the token. This will be the token that you have succeeded in your mission when you've gone in there and you've taken them away from the hands of Pharaoh, which represented Satan.

You've delivered them out of bondage. They go through the Red Sea, which is a picture of the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ and of our life. You come out of there and you come down to the mountain.

And down here on the mountain, you will worship me and you will serve me. You know that worship and serving God are together? They go together. You're not worshiping God if you're not serving God. You're just playing games.

And he says, listen, your life in Egypt was in service to Pharaoh. And the evidence of your success will be when you bring them out of freedom, they will serve God. And that's the evidence of a born-again person.

He turns from his sin and he goes to serving God. How do you serve God? You just let God do what He wants to do through you. Maybe you'll just speak to somebody. Maybe you'll do a kind deed for somebody.

But you always do it for God's glory. And when God gives you a chance, you say, I did this because of Christ. You just let Him do what He wants to do through your life. Because see, Jesus went back to heaven so He could come back down and dwell hundreds and thousands of believers.

He could only be in one spot. And we will serve God by that means. And our worship to God will be reflected by our service to God. So their life in Egypt was service to Pharaoh. Their life in freedom will be service to God.

One, they served in fear. And the other, they served in freedom. And you want to know something? We come right back to Luke in chapter 1, verse 74, that He would grant unto us that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve Him without fear.

You know, when they were down there at the mountain, they were free from Pharaoh. They weren't afraid of Pharaoh anymore. They were free to serve God. And that's a beautiful thing. Let me share this in closing.

Peter's Restoration and Christ's Commission

Do you remember when Peter denied the Lord? Remember that story? He said, Lord, I don't care who denies You. I'll never deny You. Who's the first one? Peter. Peter did follow Him into the court. But Peter denied Him three times and the cock crowed.

Remember that? And he went out and he wept bitterly. After Jesus was resurrected, He came back to Peter. And where was Peter? Peter was out in a boat fishing. I believe Peter thought it was all over. He said, I blew it.

I betrayed the Messiah, my own Savior. I denied Him. And Peter took the disciples and they went back up to Galilee. They were in a boat out there fishing. And Jesus came back and He got them back on the land.

You know what Jesus did with Peter? He said, Peter, feed my sheep. Three times. He drew Peter back. He says, Peter, follow Me. And He said, Lord, what about this disciple behind Me? He said, never mind about him.

You just follow Me. He said, Peter, you follow Me and I'll never leave you. You look at the Scriptures. You see, in the great commission that we've been given, Jesus said, you go and you make disciples and you baptize those disciples so you'll know who has really identified with Christ.