Beyond the Burning Bush

Um, but I don't, I don't know if you're like me, but for a long time, I always thought that, uh, that getting a call from God meant you had, like, a burning bush moment, where, like, it was abundantly clear that God was telling you, "This is what you are supposed to do." And so because I had that mindset, I didn't really step into what I feel like God has called me to.

Uh, He, He was many different markers over my life that I think were pointing me towards getting into ministry, but I sort of, because it wasn't this billboard that said, "Anson, you should go to Bible school and then become a pastor," I didn't really step into it.

So I got into what I was comfortable with.

I studied special education for two years, which I deeply enjoyed and loved, and was gonna step into that until I think God made it really clear and sort of forced it upon me that, no, ministry is, is where you're going to go, Anson.

Because I had sort of overlooked, like, I had family telling me that I should step into ministry, my youth pastor and people that deeply invested in me, as well as just some passions and, and things in my life that were really pointing me in that way.

And the reason I share this story isn't because, uh, there's, there's anything special about a call to ministry, but it's because I think oftentimes we can miss the call of God either because we are unprepared for the call of God or the call of God is all around us and we're sort of ignoring it.

That I sort of ignored it or pushed it to the side for a, for a decent time and created excuses not to do it because I felt, no, I'm, I'm gonna keep doing this thing, and that can't actually be God calling me to that, or that's, I don't really know if that's God voice, creating excuses and things like that.

And today, as we're in this series, The Call of God, we're gonna look at one of the most significant callings in all of scripture, looking at Moses and his call to the nation of Israel and to go to Egypt to deliver them.

And I think we're gonna learn some beautiful things about what it means and, and how we can be prepared to receive the call of God in our life.

But before we do that, I'd love to pray for us this morning.

God, thank you.

Thank you for the invitation that we have right now to be in your presence with your community.

Thank you for the church and what the church is, God.

We ask that you would speak to us this morning, that your Word would encourage our hearts and walk with us.

We thank you for your Word, we thank you for who you are, and we ask that you would go before us this morning.

We pray in Jesus' name, amen.

Amen.

So today we're in week three of our series entitled The Call of God, and fittingly, we're in chapter three of, uh, the Book of Exodus, looking at Moses and the burning bush.

It's a story that if you grew up in the church, you're probably pretty familiar with, and yet I think there's three things that I hope we glean from this story today that I think will impact us in how we see the call of God in our lives.

So we're gonna be reading Exodus 3.

If you have a Bible, you can open it up to it.

It will be on the screen, but if you are willing and able to stand as we read the Word of God together.

Picking it up in verse one: Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mount of God.

There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush.

Moses thought, saw that though the bush was on fire, it did not burn up.