I Will Be With You

You strap your first newborn into a car seat that dwarfs him, look around the hospital, and think: is anyone actually going to stop us? There's no exam, no class — they just let you take a baby home. Every one of us knows that gap: the space between what we think we're capable of and the thing suddenly in front of us. Continuing our summer series, Ordinary People, Extraordinary God, we come to Moses at the burning bush in Exodus 3 — a runaway shepherd, forty years into obscurity, who feels utterly inadequate for what God is about to ask. The big idea: every time God calls someone, there's a gap between the calling and the confidence to step out. And God doesn't close that gap by making us bigger; he closes it by revealing more of himself. Three movements from the text: God's holiness calls for our worship — before God gives Moses a task, he gives him a holy moment; ordinary ground becomes holy ground, and Moses' first response is simply to worship. God's presence answers our inadequacy — when Moses asks "Who am I?", God never pumps up his ego or lists his qualifications; he sidesteps the question with a better answer, "I will be with you." If God has called you to it, he'll be with you in it. God's identity anchors our confidence — to "Who are you?" God answers "I AM WHO I AM"; our confidence rests not on our own identity but on the unchanging character of God. God never makes Moses bigger — he reveals that he is bigger than Moses ever imagined. We only move forward when our extraordinary God is bigger than our excuses. So eyes on God, and go.