Who’s Doing the Work Here?!

Our reading today sees a very puzzled Moses investigating a bush on a desert mountainside that is burning but doesn’t burn up.

He is a refugee from Egypt where he had stood up against the systematic oppression of his own Hebrew people, killed a cruel slave driver, and then fled to Arabia. He had made a new life there as a shepherd and even got married and started a family but …

It is God who makes the grand entry to Moses via the burning bush and he summons Moses back to his first passion- freeing the oppressed Hebrew people. God claims that he has come down to set them free because he has “heard their cries”.

Moses was no doubt excited because God said that God was going to do this.

But then God declares that Moses is going to do this.

So who is going to do God’s work here? God or Moses.

Both; together.

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… 10 So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”
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.” Exodus 3:7-12

And so begins a theme about how effective faithful people can be when “God is with them” and ineffective religious people can be when they attempt to do something when God has said he in “not with them”. This theme continues through the Old Testament through Joshua, Sampson, hapless King Saul, King David, the disobedient Kings of Israel, the prophets, Jesus, the apostles, and the early church. In the church they referred to the same thing as working with the power of the Holy Spirit to make ministry effective. See Acts 1 and 2.

For Moses and for us the presence and power of God is not felt. Instead, it is simply relied upon. So Moses eventually walked into the hostile Pharoah’s palace and declared that God would do something amazing. There was no fanfare like there is in the movies, and no deep rumbling as if massive powers were moving. There was just an ordinary man trusting his God that when Yahweh said he would do something, he would do it.

That’s faith. And that’s what God looks for from you. You have his Holy Spirit dwelling within you, as do all people who have put their faith in Jesus.

13 And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance…” Ephesians 1

So whether it sharing about Jesus with an interested work colleague or fighting injustice in the community, learn to rely on God’s presence and power. He is there whether you feel it or not- and that’s a promise!

Graeme