This week is all about Moses and the topic of the wilderness, and how it can feel like a neglected or abandoned place in our lives. However, God will never abandon us! God is a God who wastes absolutely nothing. There are no leftovers with God. He uses every single scrap of everything that happens to us. He has a plan and purpose for us!
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Transcription:
Have you ever gotten just absolutely hopelessly lost? It happened to me on Long Beach Island in New Jersey. I was a girl with a brand new driver’s license and a cousin named Mikey and a sister named Kimmy. And so we decided to go exploring the island. I had no idea where we were going or how to get back, and there was no such thing as a GPS or a smartphone at the time. To this day, I have no idea how we found the beach house again, but I know that God must have had a guardian angel looking out for us that night. Hi, it’s Erica and I want to welcome you to the wilderness. Whatcha you talking about? Well, this week on the Bible for Busy People, we’re going to be walking through the wilderness. Those times in life when you and I feel lost. If you look up the definition of what a wilderness is, it’ll tell you that it’s
“a neglected or abandoned area of a garden or town, or that it’s an uncultivated, uninhabited, and inhospitable region.”
And when you’re going through a season in the wilderness, when you’re feeling spiritually dry and you’re going, God, where are you? What are you doing in my life? It can feel like you’ve been abandoned. But I just want to put my arm around your shoulder today and say, “God will never abandon you.” Listen to these words from Deuteronomy 31:6.
So be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid and do not panic before them. For the Lord your God will personally go ahead of you. He will neither fail you nor abandon you.
God will not abandon you in your wilderness season and he will not neglect you. Psalm 27, 10 says,
Even if my father and mother abandon me, the Lord will hold me close.
So don’t listen to your feelings when you’re feeling a little lost like a ship without a rudder in life. Because right there in the Word of God, he wants us to know not only will he never leave us, but he will hold us close too. Because here’s the thing, not only is our God present in our wilderness seasons, in our what’s going on times of life, but he’s active. You and I are going to study this week how God led his people and how he’s still leading us. How God fed his people and how he’s still feeding us. And we are going to explore how God bled for his people. He has never abandoned us and never will. Today we’re going to meet a very special person in his own wilderness. But a little background first; this a man who was born with a very special purpose. His mother looked at him and knew that there was something special about him, but he was born into the home of slaves. The Hebrews were enslaved by the Egyptians, and Pharaoh was telling all of the Hebrews, you need to throw newborn baby boys into the Nile River. Can you imagine? They let the girls live and the boys had to be drowned. But the mother of the man we’re going to meet today, put her tiny son with the big purpose inside a basket and placed him in the Nile River. There are alligators in there. Think about that for a second. And as this child floated along, he was found by Pharaoh’s own daughter and raised in the home of the king of Egypt. He was raised as an Egyptian, even though he was born a Hebrew slave. And when he got old enough to understand what was going on, and how badly his own people, the Hebrews were being treated, that he murdered an Egyptian who was beating one of his own people. And he fled. He fled for his life. Here he was a privileged son of the daughter of Pharaoh running because he committed murder. So now we’re going to meet Moses in his own wilderness, which is actually physical and spiritual. So, join me now in Exodus chapter three, beginning in verse one.
One day Moses was tending the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian. He led the flock far into the wilderness and came to Sinai, the mountain of God. 2 There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a blazing fire from the middle of a bush. Moses stared in amazement. Though the bush was engulfed in flames, it didn’t burn up. 3 “This is amazing,” Moses said to himself. “Why isn’t that bush burning up? I must go see it.” 4 When the Lord saw Moses coming to take a closer look, God called to him from the middle of the bush, “Moses! Moses!” “Here I am!” Moses replied. 5 “Do not come any closer,” the Lord warned. “Take off your sandals, for you are standing on holy ground. 6 I am the God of your father—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” When Moses heard this, he covered his face because he was afraid to look at God. 7 Then the Lord told him, “I have certainly seen the oppression of my people in Egypt. I have heard their cries of distress because of their harsh slave drivers. Yes, I am aware of their suffering. 8 So I have come down to rescue them from the power of the Egyptians and lead them out of Egypt into their own fertile and spacious land. It is a land flowing with milk and honey—the land where the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites now live. 9 Look! The cry of the people of Israel has reached me, and I have seen how harshly the Egyptians abuse them. 10 Now go, for I am sending you to Pharaoh. You must lead my people Israel out of Egypt.”
There were about 40 years between the murder in Egypt and the bush that wouldn’t burn up in the wilderness. God used every second of those four decades to teach Moses, to show him what was ahead. He was leading sheep. But one day God called him to lead people. See, God is a God who wastes absolutely nothing. There are no leftovers with God. He uses every single scrap of everything that happens to us. So, if you find yourself in a wilderness season, and I am sure, I mean how many times Moses must have looked up into a starry sky and thought, I messed up my life. I jumped off a train. I don’t know how to find my way back. And all the while God was saying, I see you. I see the suffering of my people. I’m going to use you to rescue them. I’m going to tap you on the shoulder, Moses. You and I are going to partner together, and miracles are going to happen. And God is saying the same to you in your wilderness. So take heart today for you, our very loved.
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