Morning Musing: Matthew 10:16-18

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“Look, I’m sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as serpents and as innocent as doves. Beware of them, because they will hand you over to local courts and flog you in their synagogues. You will even be brought before governors and kings because of me, to bear witness to them and to the Gentiles.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

One of the most pernicious lies about the Christian life that has nonetheless remained popular in our culture over the last 100 years or so is that the center of God’s will is the safest place to be. Although the person invoking that kind of idea may or may not actually mean it this way, the way it is generally received by audiences is as an assurance that when we are endeavoring to be faithful to God, nothing bad can happen to us. Not a few people have had their faith wrecked because they bought into that idea only to discover by experience that it isn’t even remotely true. In this passage, Jesus reminds us of just how untrue it is while at the same time giving us a bit of a perspective shift for how to handle some of the hard times we face so that we come out with our faith intact. Let’s talk about it.

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Morning Musing: Exodus 4:13-14

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“Moses said, ‘Please, Lord, send someone else.’ Then the Lord’s anger burned against Moses, and he said, ‘Isn’t Aaron the Levite your brother? I know that he can speak well. And also, he is on his way now to meet you. He will rejoice when he sees you.'” (CSB – Read the chapter)

I played basketball for a few years growing up. Well, I played basketball for a team for a few years. I played a lot of driveway basketball until high school. Then we moved to a house that didn’t have a goal in the driveway and I was too busy with other activities anyway (also, I was terrible). But in my few years of playing, one of the stories my dad told me to encourage me was of Larry Bird’s practice regimen. Bird was, of course, one of the greatest of all time. And while there was certainly an element of tremendous natural talent at play, he became such a superlatively great shooter because he would shoot the ball hundreds of times a day. There was a time, though, when he wasn’t so great. There was a time when Moses wasn’t so great either. This was it. Let’s talk about it.

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Digging in Deeper: Exodus 4:10-12

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“But Moses replied to the Lord, ‘Please, Lord, I have never been eloquent – either in the past or recently or since you have been speaking to your servant – because my mouth and my tongue are sluggish.’ The Lord said to him, ‘Who placed a mouth on humans? Who makes a person mute or deaf, seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go! I will help you speak and I will teach you what to say.'” (CSB – Read the chapter)

I hate excuses. Hearing someone else refuse to take responsibility for something they have said or done, but instead offer up a list of reasons why it is everybody else’s fault makes me want to drive my head through a wall (or better yet, their head). I hate excuses. Unless, of course, I am the one making them. Then they aren’t excuses at all. They’re explanations for why things turned out the way they did that are entirely reasonable. When God answered Moses’ hopefully disqualifying question of what would make the people believe he really came from God so convincingly, he switched from objections to excuses. Let’s take a look at what he said and how God responded.

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Morning Musing: Exodus 4:1

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“Moses answered, ‘What if they won’t believe me and will not obey me but say, “The Lord did not appear to you”?'” (CSB – Read the chapter)

One of the bumper sticker truisms about the Christian faith that sometimes gets thrown around is that whatever God calls us to, He equips us for. That process, however, is not always direct and smooth, and sometimes – especially if we don’t want to do it – we can be rather reluctant recipients of His help. Moses fits rather spectacularly into this category. In the first part of chapter four here, we find Moses trying to get out of what God was sending him to do. What we see here is not the great man of faith we know him to be, but who he was before that. Moses tries three times to get out of what God wants him to do. Let’s look at each of these in turn this week, starting with this first one.

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A Significant Invitation

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This past Sunday we got to celebrate new journeys after Jesus by baptizing some of His followers. It was a pretty exciting day. Below is the challenge I gave to the church once we were finished. It is one for you to consider as well. May this point you – and your church – in the direction of becoming more fully who Jesus made you to be.

A Significant Invitation

Days like this are why we do what we do. 

Days like this one get right to the heart of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. That applies both for folks in and out of the tank this morning. For the folks I had the privilege of baptizing a little while ago, they were being directly obedient to Jesus’ command that those who follow Him be baptized. For this church, we were commanded as Jesus’ followers to make disciples and baptize them. Here we are. What’s more, we’re doing all of this right out in front of God and everybody. If you are a follower of Jesus, this is what you should be all about: seeing people profess in about as public a way as they possibly can that they are a follower of Jesus. 

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