 Lose the Weight - 2
Of Worthlessness
January 14, 2007
Pastor Paul W Newell
“I’m Too Fat ”
Moses – Exodus 3:1ff “Who am I...”
I want to just right into what may be a familiar story for some of you...read with me from Exodus chapter three:
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. 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. “This is amazing,” Moses said to himself. “Why isn’t that bush burning up? I must go see it.” When the LORD saw Moses coming to take a closer look, God called to him from the middle of the bush, “Moses! Moses!” Exodus 3:1 - 4
Maybe you’re not so familiar with the story so let’s go back and catch up.
Moses (most of us know him from the Ten Commandments) had a unique birth and upbringing. He was the child of a Levite (an Israeli Priest) couple who were slaves in Egypt. Four hundred years have passed since the time of Joseph (last week’s sermon which may have seemed like it was 400 years long...).
At birth, Moses was condemned to death, as were all of the male children of the Israelites. Pharaoh wanted to make sure the slaves did not grow to overpower the Egyptians.
Moses should have been killed at birth, but his mother hid him until he was too old to hide. Then through a series of events Pharaoh’s daughter found Moses and adopted him as her own. It was obviously a God orchestrated event.
The book of Acts in the New Testament picks up the story:
“Moses was born – a beautiful child in God’s eyes. His parents cared for him at home for three months. When at last they had to abandon him, Pharaoh’s daughter found him and raised him as her own son. Moses was taught all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he became mighty in both speech and action.” Acts 7:20-22
Moses was good looking, smart, rich, powerful. He had it made. But something happened to Moses, he made a radical shift.
“...when he grew up, refused to be treated as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. He chose to share the oppression of God’s people indeed of enjoying the fleeting pleasures of sin. He thought it was better to suffer for the sake of the Messiah than to own the treasures of Egypt.” (Hebrews 11:24-25)
To fill in the rest of the story, Moses blew it. In his attempt to show that he was on the Israeli slave’s side he murdered an Egyptian who was beating a slave. Pharaoh heard what had happened and sent word to kill Moses. The Israelites, instead of coming to Moses’ defense turned on him as well. With both sides against him, Moses was forced to runaway and hide in the dessert.
Fast forward forty more years and Moses is now living in a backwater(less?) desert country called Midian herding sheep for his father-in-law. Quite a change – from palace prince to sheep-herder. Forty years in a palace, forty years in Po-Dunk-Holler.
Then God spoke.
For eighty years Moses had done it his own way – now God was going to do it His way. Pick up the story with me...
“Do not come any closer,” the LORD warned. “Take off your sandals, for you are standing on holy ground. 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. 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. 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. Look! The cry of the people of Israel has reached me, and I have seen how harshly the Egyptians abuse them. Now go, for I am sending you to Pharaoh. You must lead my people Israel out of Egypt.” Exodus 3:5 - 10
The first time around Moses sets out to deliver God’s people his way. This time God is going to do it God’s way!
It’s the next verse that gets us to today’s weight: Losing the weight of worthlessness.
Think about this. You are a sheep herder in the “Midian of Nowhere” and God takes the time to speak to you in the first ever burning bush, the only ever burning bush. He not only speaks, but gives you what will be the most incredible opportunity ever given to anyone up this point in history. You’re going to lead God’s people out of Egypt and slavery.
Would you jump at the opportunity?
If you were offered the promotion, the opportunity of a lifetime, what would your response be?
Moses’ response was to reveal his own worthlessness. Look at verse 11.
“But who am I to appear before Pharaoh?...How can you expect me...”
It might be easy to accept what Moses said at face value, but remember where he came from. Moses had been the good-looking rich kid. He had had it all in the palm of his hands. But he had allowed his past failures to so tear him down that he believed he was worthless to God.
“I’m too fat...I can’t lose the weight of worthlessness.”
Here’s where a lot of us are this morning.
We can’t move ahead for God because we don’t assume we’re worth it. We are weighted down with feelings of worthlessness.
“I’ve failed in the past.” “I’ve tried before...” “I could never do that...”
So much of what keeps us from going to the heights of where God wants us to go is because we don’t feel we’ve got what it takes – we feel worthless.
“I’m too...I don’t measure up, I could never measure up...”
Who am I?
It’s at this point that God begins to teach Moses some valuable lessons about worth and where real worth comes from. God gives Moses an adjustment...He sort of puts Moses’ spiritual backbone back in place...
“Then God told him, I will be with you. And this will serve as proof that I have sent you: When you have brought the Israelites out of Egypt, you will return here to worship God at this very mountain.” (3:12)
Who am I? I will be with you!
Moses didn’t need to be concerned so much about who he was as WHO was with him.
Here’s the first truth God taught Moses:
#1 When you’re feeling worthless remember:
YOUR GREATEST NEED IS NOT SELF-CONFIDENCE, BUT GOD CONFIDENCE.
The reality of Moses’ life is that it took God eight years to get Moses to the point that he realized he couldn’t do it himself. As one author so aptly put it, God had to get Egypt out of Moses before He could use Moses to get His people out of Egypt.
The antidote to feelings of worthlessness is not to try to feel more self-worth, but to realize how worthwhile we are in Jesus.
The first step to understanding our worth is to understand the One who placed greatest worth in us – God!
There’s a second truth:
#2 When you’re feeling worthless remember:
God Always Uses Your Yesterday to Prepare You for Your Tomorrow
Moses has a second issue...
“But Moses protested, If I go to the people of Israel and tell them, The God of you ancestors has sent me to you, they won’t believe me. They will ask, Which god are you talking about? What is his name? Then what should I tell them?”
Moses is still assuming that it’s about him. He’s assuming he has to do it the way he did in the past. He hasn’t quite learned yet that...
“The things that God allows to go wrong in your yesterdays are the things he wants to use to make you better in your tomorrows.”
“They won’t believe me...” to which God answers:
“I AM THE ONE WHO ALWAYS IS. Just tell them, I AM has sent me to you.” (14)
The first time Moses set out to deliver his people himself. It wasn’t that it was a bad idea – deliverance and all – it’s just that it wasn’t God’s time and God’s way!
God wanted Moses to learn from his past. This time it would be God who was going to do it through Moses.
Our past is God’s tool for preparing us for our future. Learn from it.
#3. When you’re feeling worthless remember:
God always uses what you are and what you have before He gives you something new.
Moses protests again:
“Look, they won’t believe me! They won’t do what I tell them. They’ll just say, The Lord never appeared to you. Then the LORD asked him, What do you have there in your hand? A shepherds staff Moses replied. Throw it down on the ground, the Lord told him, So Moses threw it down and it became a snake...” (4:1-3)
Moses wanted something new from God to make him feel adequate for the opportunity – God took what Moses was already holding.
We have to understand that God never calls us to do what He has not already equipped us to accomplish. We have to be willing to use what’s in our hands, what we already have. God did a lot of powerful things through Moses, but in almost every case that staff was involved. God starts with what He’s already equipped us with.
We start feeling worthless when we start looking everywhere but in our hands. If we would just use what’s already in our grasp we would overcome the doubt and feelings of worthlessness.
God’s not going to give you something new until you use what he’s already given you.
Moses hesitates some more and God continues to reiterate these lessons, but there’s one final lesson and in reality this is the lesson:
Now Moses has a choice. He can either accept God’s opportunity or turn and walk away.
Go for God or retreat into the desert.
Genesis chapter four tells us...
“So Moses took his wife and sons...and headed back to the land of Egypt. In his hand he carried the staff of God.” (20)
Here’s the ultimate lesson God was teaching Moses there in the desert:
#4: When you are feeling worthless remember:
Obeying God leads to self-worth.
Exodus 33:3 says, “...and Moses was considered a very great man I the land of Egypt. He was respected by Pharaoh’s officials and the Egyptians people alike.”
Moses got back all of the worth he had lost. He lost it trying to do it his way.
He gained it back by doing things God’s way.
Our worth is entirely tied up in God. God loves us and that should be enough, but every-moment reality tells us that there is another part – how we feel about ourselves. We don’t always love ourselves and the things we find ourselves doing.
Here’s the powerful truth: when we obey God; when we follow God’s purpose and direction – we feel good about ourselves and others will notice as well.
God’s love, God’s worth in us, is not an excuse to neglect His direction.
Terrie loves me. As far as I know from what she’s told me, I’m worth a great deal to her. Because of how much Terrie loves me and how much she thinks I’m worth – I want to be all I can be for her!
My kids love me – I want to be all I can be for them.
When Moses simply followed through with God’s direction in his life – he felt worthwhile and others noticed. He wasn’t perfect – Moses made some cataclysmic mistakes. But his worth was not in his failure, it was in God.
How do you lose the weight of worthlessness? How do you gain the freedom to move ahead when you feel your failure has made you useless?
Realize how valuable you are to God.
Place your confidence in God, not yourself.
Allow God to use your past failures to prepare you for tomorrow.
Accept that what God has already given you is a powerful tool to serve Him
Just obey God – your feelings of worth will grow.
Reference Material for this message gleaned from Tony Evans, No More Excuses, Crossway (1996)
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