Episode 51: 6/22/09

Readings:

Psalm 30
Deuteronomy 5:1-22
2 Corinthians 4:1-12
Luke 16:10-17

Sermon:

“And Moses called all Israel, and said unto them, Hear, O Israel, the statutes and judgments which I speak in your ears this day, that ye may learn them, and keep, and do them. The LORD our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. The LORD made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive this day. The LORD talked with you face to face in the mount out of the midst of the fire.”
Deuteronomy 5:1-4

Grace, mercy and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen

I sometimes wonder…

I picture Moses standing there before the children of Israel, in his hand the Law handed to him by God at the heights of Sinai, and just find myself wondering. What must have he had been thinking?

Even now he had to be a million miles away from where he had thought he would be in his life, a million miles away from anything he had thought possible or planned for the days of his life. He stood before a people he was called to deliver, a people he had just lead from the land of Egypt, from the only place they had known, a land where their fathers and their fathers had been slaves, for generations abiding in the brutal captivity of the Pharaoh’s whip. It was the only life any of them had ever known, the only life they seen for themselves and their children. Now though he took them into the desert, he had parted the seas by the hand of God and stood at the front of the ranks of the now nomadic tribes.

Then to stand in the presence of the Lord as he handed down His laws and His commandments, to be chosen to deliver them unto His people…

No, in a thousand lifetimes Moses couldn’t have pictured that for his life as he lived as a Prince of Egypt or as a Shepherd of Median, given to another life altogether..

What must have he been thinking? What thoughts must have raced through his mind? Ever since that moment when he was first called by the Lord as the bush, engulfed by flames, would not be consumed by the fire, he had never quite viewed himself as worthy of the task he was called to, nor capable of the work the Lord laid out before him. Did those thoughts now linger in his mind? Those same feelings of inadequacy that had guided his first protests for the Lord to send another?

Yet like that burning bush, though set ablaze by the world and the trials of it, God would not let Moses be consumed by the fire.

Now… now he had looked upon the face of His God, and was given the covenant by which the people were to live by, to speak to them as the emissary of their God, as the Prophet of His Word. How could those feelings not linger in the depth of his mind or in the hidden places of his heart?

Still, even in the most unlikely of circumstances, even with the most unlikely of people God does chose to fulfill His will and His desire, providing unto them all that is needed, all that is required that they may be used as instruments of His Holy Plan..

“They answered and said unto him, Art thou also of Galilee? Search, and look: for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet.” (John 7:52)

The child of a poor girl and a carpenter, born of meager estate, raised in Galilee, to look upon the Son of God the Pharisees would not see anything special in the Christ. He could not be the long awaited Messiah or the appointed Prophet of the Lord, after all, why would God use such unworthy people to bring such a glorious life into this world? It was the same question that Mary, humbled in the presence of the Lord, would ask of God when it was first revealed that the Spirit would come upon her and she would bear the life of the Savior in her womb.

Yet God would still use her, and the Messiah would come from her house even as the Pharisees would proclaim that no Prophet has ever arisen from Galilee.

It’s the same over and over again, Samuel, hearing the calling of the Lord, Jonah, fleeing the call of the Lord, Saul of Tarsus, as the earth shook on the road to Damascus, the most unlikely of people in the most unlikely of circumstances used for the divine purpose of the Lord, provided that which is needed to fulfill His plan for their lives.

Our own calling from the Lord may not be as dramatic as the burning bush, nor may it be as awe inspiring as the angel of the lord appearing before Mary, it may not be as frightening as the lightening crashing to the ground and the voice of God shattering through calling out to us. It may not come to us in the quiet of the night, calling our name as we lay asleep or in the form of a whale swallowing us to spit us out where we are suppose to be. But for every life the Lord has a purpose and His call does come, ours must be to listen for it and hear it when it does.

We may not feel as if we are adequate for the tasks that the Lord has laid out for us or we may be fearful of the price we may have to pay or the cost it will have on us, we may not even understand exactly why it is that we are the one that the Lord has picked for it. Yet perfect in His wisdom, transcending in His knowledge, He knows, and He provides unto us all things that we need, that even amidst our own weakness, even in our own faults and failings, we shall be given strength that His will, that His plan will be made perfect in us.

Though we do not understand, God does and He has a perfect plan in the design that He has laid out. Though it may seem overwhelming, God never gives us more than we can handle and, having created us with His hand, He is fully aware of what it is that we are capable of.

There, in His purpose, He will make all things possible that we will be able to withstand the challenges and the trials, the hardships and the tribulations to make manifest His Word through the power of His Spirit. Always faithful to His children, He will pour forth His grace in abundance to those true to His calling for them.

In all things therefore be open to the tasks that the Lord has laid out for you, knowing that He shall be there beside you, giving you His strength and wisdom, putting upon you His whole armor, that you may be used as vessels and instruments of His Will. Be open to His call and trust in His name knowing that He shall walk beside you in righteousness that you will be made whole and complete according to His plan and design. His mercy and His compassion for His children are all encompassing, abiding in our spirit if we come forth to live according to His design in His Spirit, according to the testimony and the sacrifice of His only begotten Son, Christ Jesus.

Trust in Him in all things and know that you have a firm foundation in the life He has set forth for you, a rock of ages to which you can anchor your hopes and faith to, casting your fears amidst the sea that surrounds, knowing they will be drowned and cast far from you.

Lord, grant this unto us all.

Now may the peace of the Lord, that peace that transcends all human understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, even unto life everlasting, Amen.