Do as Moses Did and Surrender Your Staff to God

The primary way we can show the Lord our sincere love is through our service—by serving Him with a surrendered heart. Each one of us gets excited when you ask someone for something and that person, with such willingness and delight, goes and does what you ask according to the need you have.

How beautiful that is! Isn’t it? When we say to a child, “Please go and bring me some water,” and that little child runs—or that teenager runs—to the kitchen, brings us that water, puts a little ice in it, brings it on a little plate, with a napkin and everything else, and gives it to us with love.

That touches our hearts, doesn’t it?, and strengthens relationships. It is the same with our Heavenly Father when we obey Him and serve Him according to what He has commanded us. In the same way, He delights in our offering and rejoices. We must give to Him with a joyful heart, and in that way we bring joy to God’s heart. Just by virtue of the fact that you are a son or daughter of God, you automatically know that you have received the call to collaborate in His Kingdom here on Earth.

It does not matter whether you have been serving the Lord for a long time or whether you entered His Kingdom today. It does not matter. It does not matter whether you are very young, a child, a young adult, or already advanced in years. It does not matter what has happened in your life, whether you have had successes or failures, or where you have been. That does not matter to God. If we are children of God, we automatically know that He has called us to collaborate in His Kingdom. None of us is excluded, because God knows what He has placed in each person.

God does not make mistakes. He knows; He knows our innermost being. He knows what He has placed in each person, knows how He can use us, and knows you inside and out; He also knows the needs around us. And as if that were not enough, God has the resources that you and I need to grow in our calling, to be obedient, and to serve Him as He needs us to serve Him. He is looking for willing hearts.

There is a verse that says, “The eyes of the LORD range throughout the whole earth to show His power on behalf of those whose hearts are perfect toward Him.” And “perfection” there does not mean that we have everything in perfect order, all neatly pressed. It means that we have a willing, sensitive, teachable heart so that He may use us. So I believe that all of us want God to show His power on our behalf. Therefore, all of us are included. No one—no one—escapes that.

And the Bible has many examples of people—men, women, and children too—because we know that in the Word there are those whom God has called from childhood and even from their mother’s womb. So in the Word there are people just like you and me, completely ordinary, common people whom God has used for His glory. And one of them is Moses. We find his life, his biography, and how God used him in the Book of Exodus, which is the second book of the Word.

And before going into chapters 3 and 4 of Exodus, I want us to review things very quickly. I know that many of you know details of Moses’ life, but let us give a bird’s-eye overview. We know that Moses was born a slave, to enslaved parents, in Israel—which was a nation that had been enslaved by Egypt for hundreds of years by the time God raised up Moses. He was born at a time when Pharaoh had issued an edict that “every male born to the Hebrews must be killed.”

And instead of doing this, Moses’ parents, in faith, made a very important decision. Moses’ mother caulked a little ark, a basket, coated it with pitch—asphalt—protected it, sealed it, and placed it in the river with the three-month-old baby Moses inside the basket. Providentially, Pharaoh’s daughter came near that part of the river, saw him, and had compassion on him. Most importantly, God’s provision did not end there; rather, God arranged things so that this little baby was sent to be raised by Moses’ biological mother.

So she was the one who served as his wet nurse and breastfed him—perhaps, we do not know, because the Word does not say—for two, three, or four years. But for a time, Moses was raised by his very own mother. When he reached a certain age, he went to the king’s palace as the adopted son of Pharaoh’s daughter, and there he lived in the most powerful country of that era. He was taught all the arts and sciences of his time. He lived as a prince until the age of 40, when one day he had to flee for his life.

Because Pharaoh wanted to kill him, since he had killed an Egyptian while defending an Israelite, a Hebrew, and obviously incurred Pharaoh’s wrath and had to flee. He fled, leaving behind his life as a prince at the age of 40, and then went to live and dwell in the desert of Midian, where he remained for another 40 years. And it is there, at that time, at that crossroads in Moses’ life, that I want us to enter for this afternoon’s message.

And so we go to Exodus chapter 3, verse 2. There we find Moses tending sheep. He has already been doing it for 40 years, day after day. Verse 2 says: “And the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush; and he looked, and saw that the bush was burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed. Then Moses said, ‘I will now go over and see this great sight, why the bush does not burn up.’”

When the LORD saw that he was going over to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, “Moses, Moses!” And he answered, “Here I am.” So that was a day that dawned just like any other in the desert. Moses did not expect anything out of the ordinary to happen, but God revealed Himself to him that day. He caught Moses’ attention with this bush that was burning with fire but was not consumed, because something extraordinary was happening. It caught Moses’ attention. And it is important to note that it was when Moses set his work aside.

Moses was tending the flock when he looked and saw the bush, and it was when he moved, left the place where he was, and went over to see what was happening. It was then that God spoke to him, and he answered, “Here I am.” I believe that is an important detail, because it is important for us to be attentive and alert to how God is speaking into our lives. If we see that God is speaking to us, that He is over there and there is some indication that He wants to speak to us, but we remain in the same place and make no attempt to connect with that, then nothing is going to happen.

The matter ends there. But Moses went to investigate, and when God saw that he had moved, He called him. It is possible that 40 or 50 years earlier, during his glorious days as a prince in Egypt, Moses would have answered differently. Perhaps he would not merely have said, “Here I am,” but would have given us his résumé as a prince of Egypt. But at this moment, God is speaking to a Moses who has passed through God’s school of the desert.

He is no longer the Moses he once was. That stage of his life ended many years ago, and he is a different man. Moses has now spent 40 years in a remote corner of the earth, with few accomplishments to his name. He has had plenty of time to meditate and to let go of the airs he may have acquired during the time when he was a prince in Egypt. That is why he simply answers, “Here I am.”

God cannot use you, He cannot use me, and He could not have used Moses if Moses had been full of himself, arrogant and boastful. Moses answered God in the way God needed to hear. That is how God wants us to answer Him: simply with a “Here I am.” We must live in continual expectation that God will speak to us on the most ordinary of days, in the most ordinary of circumstances, and even when we are in—or have passed through—the desert. Through a desert.

No matter how terrible the desert of our life may have been. At this stage of Moses’ life, he is already 80 years old, and surely, at the age of 80, what are you thinking about? Not making a career change, right? You make those changes at 40, or 45 at the latest. He is already 80 years old, so surely he thought that he would continue working in the desert as a shepherd and that he would end his days there, raising his family, taking care of the matters of daily life, and tending sheep.

In the eyes of the world, Moses could have been considered insignificant. But to God it was different. Do you know why? Because God does not look at appearances; He does not look at the outside. He looks at the inside; He looks at the heart. He looks at what a person has within—the willingness to be used by Him. God knew Moses’ inner being as if by X-ray, so He knew that Moses was going to be a powerful instrument in His hands. And besides knowing Moses in such an intimate way, God also knew the need of His people Israel.

If we look at verse 7 of that same chapter, Exodus 3, look at what that verse says: “Then the LORD said, ‘I have surely seen the affliction of My people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their anguish, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hands of the Egyptians.’” That verse is very important, as is the statement that “He has come down to deliver them out of the hands of the Egyptians.” “And to bring them up from that land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the places”—of some peoples whom He mentions later.

And He continues in verse 9: “Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come before Me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them.” In other words, we see in that passage that God not only knows that Moses will be a good instrument in His hands, but is also aware of His people’s need. They were a people who had been enslaved for more than 400 years by that time and who had long suffered terrible anguish at the hands of the Egyptians.

And God is aware. And to make an aside at that point, how important it is to know that, just as God was aware of the needs of His people Israel, He is also aware of our needs. Sometimes we think that we suffer alone; we experience failures and think that we are alone, that no one has compassion, that the God of the universe has forgotten us. But that is not so. If He cared and knew about the affliction of His people, how could He not know the affliction of each one of us?

Each one of us is important to Him. And it is important to know that—that we are not alone and that at some point He will provide timely help.

And what we must do during those times is not resolve situations our own way, hastily, in the flesh, but wait on Him and wait for Him to guide us and give us the wisdom we need. Because God’s plans and intentions are always better than those we have, even for ourselves.

Up through verse 9, Moses had only heard—if we remember the passage—how God’s heart beat regarding the pain and oppression of His people and how He had come down to deliver them from the hands of the Egyptians. But in verse 10, God extends a call to Moses that changes his life forever—a forceful call. And look at what that verse says, because up to that point Moses has said, “Yes, Lord, it is true. How terribly my poor brothers are suffering over there!”

But in verse 10, God involves him personally, and look at what He says to him: “Come now, therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh, that you may bring My people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.” It sounds as though He truly meant what He was saying: “Come now, therefore, and I will send you.” And He gives Moses a very precise, forceful call. God determined that Moses was His answer to His people’s need. I imagine that Moses’ first reaction was to look behind him and wonder, “Could He be speaking to someone else?”

But he remembered that he was alone in the desert and that the only things there were sheep, and God does not call sheep. Although He does call us “sheep” in the Word, yes. But the call was for him, and besides, God had mentioned his name: He had called him by name. He had said, “Moses, Moses!” Some of us act in exactly the same way. We know that God has already chosen us for a task of service, but we are scanning the horizon to see who is going to do it.

“God has placed this flame within me to work with children, to disciple children, to visit the sick in hospitals, to visit prisoners in jail.” Whatever it may be that makes your heart vibrate with something you desire to do for the Lord. But then we do not see ourselves as God’s answer; instead, we are looking to see who is going to do it. So we play the role of God: we call others to do what we already know God has called us to do.

And we see that the first thing that came out of Moses’ mouth—at that moment, after the call—was not, “Here I am, send me.” On the contrary, verse 11 says: “But Moses said to God, ‘Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?’” So it was quite the opposite: you know, what is this? How am I going to do what You are saying? Evidently, Moses did not hear what God said.

If we go back to verse 8, we see that God clearly said that it was He—that is, God, not Moses—who had come down to deliver His people from the hands of the Egyptians. Nevertheless, in his humanity, when faced with the assignment God gives him, Moses freezes and focuses not on God but on himself. He does not focus on God’s power; instead, he focuses on himself and on the limitations he also knew he had.

We are experts; we can give someone else a detailed list of our shortcomings, our problems, and what we do not have. That is what Moses focused on at that moment. When we are confronted with a call from God, a movie of the past immediately plays in our minds, shouting at us, sometimes, “You are not qualified; you are no good for that. Be careful—you are going to fail. You failed before, and you know what they say: third time’s the charm. So you had better stay where you are, because you are taking a risk.”

“You are not worthy to be used by God because you already failed Him before. You did that; you have spent so many years doing the other thing. You have not studied. You have a criminal record.” In other words, a long list of things immediately runs through our minds, saying, “That must be for someone else. It is not for me.” And I believe that is exactly what happened to Moses. First he looked at himself on the outside, and what did he see? What did Moses see when he looked at his outward appearance? Imagine him after 40 years in the desert. He saw his sun-darkened skin, battered by the daily assault of the desert sun.

Forty years of sun is a lot, isn’t it? He saw the furrows in his skin—because remember, he was no longer a young man; he was already 80 years old—and hands roughened by hard work in the desert. And he looked at his feet and saw them covered with the organic matter of the desert—that is the polite way of putting it, right?—and he looked at his clothing, and what did he see? Fabric that was perhaps threadbare and faded by the sun. In other words, his appearance was not all that pleasant. That is a long time to spend doing the same thing in an inhospitable environment.

Then, after first looking at himself on the outside, he looked within and strung together many thoughts. He had a tremendous inner monologue. He may have said something like this to himself: “Once upon a time—a long time ago—I was somebody; now I am only a shepherd. It is too late to leave this and do something new. How am I going to know what to do if I show up there, when I have not been to an Egyptian court in years, much less spoken with a Pharaoh? Besides, once in my life I thought I could do something to free my people, and it went very badly for me.

I decided to kill the Egyptian, and instead of earning the respect and gratitude of the Hebrews, they despised me. They despised the act of courage I had carried out. And not only that, but Pharaoh issued an order for my death. If I failed then to do this very thing—free the people—I am going to fail again. Besides, I have already lived in this desert for many years. I know it now; I know where every bush and every stone is—everything. I know where there is a little patch of grass; I know this environment as well.

So at this stage of my life, I am not going to start doing something for myself.” That is how I imagine Moses brooding after receiving that call. From verse 10 onward, a very interesting conversation between God and Moses continues. This conversation shows us that our own humanity is the greatest obstacle to the fulfillment of God’s call upon our lives. Sometimes we do not need any help; in this case, we ourselves are more than enough, more than capable of canceling God’s call at its very beginning.

Let us read God’s words of affirmation after Moses flatly declares himself disqualified, when he says to Him, “Me? I am not the one. How can I be the one who goes to Egypt?” In verse 12, look at these beautiful words. It says—God tells Moses—“Come, for I will be with you,” and I repeat, “Come, for I will be with you.” In other words, God was telling Moses, “Stop fixing your eyes on yourself. You are My instrument; fix your eyes on Me. Go without fear, because I am going with you in this undertaking. I am the one responsible. You are not alone.”

These words of the Lord, “Come, for I will be with you,” are like refreshing water to any son or daughter of God who wants to do His will. Because we have no reason to worry, for when that anxiety comes—“How am I going to do this?”—we know that He has already said, “Come, for I will be with you.” I remember something silly I thought once, when we were already underway and I realized that the women’s retreat was going to be an annual event; we had already held about two of them.

I remember that one day I was practically trembling and saying, “This has to be done every year. But I am not creative enough to come up with a different idea for this retreat every year.” It is laughable—what kind of God had I believed in? If He had called me to do something, I did not have to worry about it coming from me; I had to apply myself to developing that relationship with Him so that I could receive His guidance and wisdom to do what He had called me to do.

So sometimes we think things that are so ridiculous and small-minded. And that happens to all of us, especially at the beginning of our walk and at stages when we see that God is expanding us, taking us out of a comfort zone and into a zone of—let us say—risk. That is when we tremble. But God has the answer for everything, and He will equip us when those fears come, when discouragement and difficulties come—and they certainly will come when we respond to God’s call.

Look, we may still be at the very center of the Lord’s exact will, and even there we will experience discouragement, difficulties, and fears. Without fail—isn’t that so? We have all experienced it. But this truth that He is with me serves both as an anchor and as a compass, enabling us to continue along the path He has determined for us to follow, and it comforts our souls. Because we know, “Look, I do not have to worry about that coming from me.” I have to be diligent, and I have to keep learning.

But I do not have to worry that the power to do what God has commanded me to do must come from me, because it comes from God. God is the one and only true source of the effectiveness of a child of God. There is nothing else. Apart from Him we can do nothing. It is very possible that in our own strength we may do things that turn out well and are even good, but they will not be God’s best. And I believe that each one of us wants God’s best.

When we are involved in the Lord’s work, it is easy for us to become so absorbed in what we do for God that we forget that what matters most is who we are in Him. There is a great difference. A person can be anxiously busy doing things, devoting 24 hours a day to ministry and service to the Lord. But that is not necessarily what He wants. What He wants is our obedience. We have to be obedient. The longer I walk in the ways of the Lord, the more I realize that principle and the more real it becomes to me:

that what matters most to God is not what we do, but the obedient heart with which we do it. In the same way, when you have a need and need something at that moment, what pleases you? That it be done at that moment, not later, when the person decides it is time. It has to be done when you need it. We must do likewise; obedience is the most important thing. Obedience, obedience, obedience.

That is something I continually repeat to myself. Because He cannot support what He has not commanded, and if we are outside His timing, it will not work either. Many people have begun good endeavors, but they have done so outside God’s timing. And many people have correctly discerned the area in which God wants them to serve, but they have gotten ahead of God’s timing and have therefore failed. Something similar happened to Moses. I believe it is very possible—and I believe the Word confirms it—that from his youth he had a desire to deliver his people, right? Because he was raised as a prince in Egypt, but for a time he drank the milk of a mother who believed in Jehovah, and surely she did not waste a single opportunity to tell him who he was: that he was part of the people of God; that he had a mission in his life and that was why he had been rescued from the waters; and that he should be careful in the environment he was about to enter.

And of course, a very young child may not understand the complexity of what his parent wants to teach him, but I believe she spoke to his spirit. That mother spoke to Moses’ spirit so that it would remain there. And I believe that is a great lesson for parents: we must not waste a single moment. We must take advantage of every moment our children are under our care to impart to them that awareness of God’s presence, that pursuit of God, and that identity of who he or she is in God.

Time flies, and sometimes we think, “Well, I still have time to teach these lessons to my children,” but time passes so quickly. Your child may be under your care for 17, 18, 19, 20, or 25 years, perhaps no longer, so we must take advantage of those years beginning in childhood. We must begin imparting that to a child from the time he is very young. Even if we believe that his mind does not understand, I believe his spirit can be receptive. Because it is an act of faith.

So that was an aside to encourage you to do precisely that: take advantage of every day to engrave that upon our children. She told him about the covenant; surely she told him about God’s covenant with His people, with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob, and she spoke to him about his identity as part of that people. So I believe that was there, deep within Moses’ spirit, and a day came when he wanted to do something about it. But what happened? He did it at the wrong time. He did it in the flesh.

He went out, saw an Egyptian mistreating a Hebrew, and on his own initiative, in the flesh, decided to kill him, thinking that perhaps this would earn him the approval of the Hebrew people. But the opposite happened; we see that it did not work out. But how wonderful that God is the God of many opportunities. He did not cast Moses aside at that moment because of his disobedience and arrogance. Nor does He cast you or me aside. It does not matter what experiences, sins, or failures there may have been in our lives.

There is a calling; there is definitely a call from God upon the life of each one of you. And He has all the resources needed to restore us for His glory. One of the things we continually do is condemn ourselves and disqualify ourselves from God’s work because of shame and feelings of unworthiness. But Psalm 40, verse 2, says to each one of us: “And He brought me up out of the pit of despair, out of the miry clay; He set my feet upon a rock and made my steps firm.”

So we see there that we do not remain in the miry clay. And I believe that each one of us has had an experience of miry clay. We have a past in some area, because before we did not have the light of Christ, and now we do. Each one of you has not only natural talents, but also a vocation, a temperament, a unique personality, and gifts that God has placed within you; you also have this experience of miry clay in your life.

And God knows who needs to hear from you. He knows that there is a need in the world, and He knows how to bring God’s instrument together with that need. So even that which may embarrass you, even that which you would like to forget, when we joyfully submit it to the Lord and ask Him to do the work, even that can work for good and can be used for His glory. God does not discard anything; He wastes nothing.

We already saw in Exodus 3:12 that God promised Moses He would be with him. But Moses is still not convinced that this calling is for him, and he expresses his resistance and excuses four more times. He is a persistent man. Moses is not the only one to whom that has happened, right? You and I are just as vulnerable as he was. I know from personal experience that it is common for insecurities, fears, and unresolved emotional issues to surface in the wake of a calling.

And when we see what is inside us opposing God’s call, we have two options for dealing with it. We have two options. When God calls us, we can remain small and comfortable right where we are. That is one option. The other option is that we can accept the challenge to grow. So which one do we want? No one wants to stunt their growth in any area. Those, then, are the two options. Either we remain where it is comfortable and go no farther, staying small and never growing, or we accept the challenge to grow.

And if we are already serving and difficulties arise in ministry—and they will arise—we also have two options: we can remain small [again] and run away, abandoning it all: “This is too difficult; this is not for me”; or we can submit to God’s process of growth in our areas of need. Because when God calls us and we work with other people, that is not easy. Working with people is difficult, yes or no? Isn’t that true? It is difficult; it brings complications.

But it is not impossible, and that is when we have to say, “Okay. The heat is rising, the fire is getting hotter—what do I do? Do I leave and abandon all this? This is too difficult; God did not call me to this. Or do I stay, see what God wants to do with my life, and make changes so that God’s call may be fulfilled?” Moses’ insecurities and fears rose to the surface just as ours do. And they are recorded for our benefit in chapters 3 and 4 of Exodus.

It is a conversation that I find fascinating. In chapter 3, verse 13, it says: “Moses said to God [hypothetically, he is speaking to God]: ‘Behold, I come to the children of Israel and say to them: The God of your fathers has sent me to you. If they ask me, “What is His name?” what shall I answer them?’” This question conveys feelings with which all of us can identify, namely the emotion or feeling of pride.

Because you may outwardly appear to be a humble, simple person, but we all have pride, don’t we? It comes out somewhere. Maybe it does not come out in many situations, but there are some in which it comes out, no matter how humble we may be. Because that is what happened to Moses. Out of pride, we often want to have all the details in order, know all the answers, avoid making any mistakes, and not be embarrassed in front of others. And all so that we can protect ourselves from rejection.

All of us hate being rejected; it is something human beings find difficult. No one likes rejection, and some of us are more sensitive to it than others, but because of pride we do not want to be rejected. We are intimidated by what others think. Many people have stopped doing things God commanded them to do because they are intimidated, because they freeze at the thought of what others might believe; or they think, “If I make a bad impression, what will happen?” Sometimes we give more weight to other people’s opinions of us than to obeying God.

That happens to us very often. Why? Because we have pride in our hearts. And look at the answer Moses receives. He says: “I am who I am.” And He said: “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel: ‘I Am has sent me to you.’” There God identifies Himself by His divine name. That name encompasses God’s absolute and eternal existence, His attributes, and His character—all within that “I Am.” And He repeats to Moses that He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Moreover, in that same passage—a little later—He gives him comfort so that he may bring the children of Israel a message of comfort and deliverance. And as if that were not enough, since Moses is afraid that he will arrive there only to have the door slammed in his face, He also assures him that the elders of Israel will receive him, listen to him, and know that it was God who sent him. So He gives him these words of encouragement: “Do not worry, Moses. I am telling you now that they will listen to you.”

“And besides, I am going to perform great wonders before Pharaoh, and not only that, but when the people of Israel leave Egypt, they will very easily plunder Egypt, so that they will take riches with them.” Thus God tells him many things that should by now have eased the discomfort or uneasiness Moses feels about the call. In Exodus 4:1, Moses continues his campaign of resistance against the call.

Then Moses answered, saying: “Behold, they will not believe me or listen to my voice, for they will say, ‘The LORD has not appeared to you.’” Poor man, he keeps saying the same thing: they are not going to believe me. God tells him, “They are going to believe you, receive you, and listen to you,” and he says, “No, no. I am going to show up there, and they are going to tell me, ‘The LORD has not appeared to you.’” And how interesting is the answer God gives persistent Moses. In that case, God says to him: “What is that in your hand?” And Moses answered Him, “A staff.”

And at that moment God proceeded to turn the staff into a snake and then turned it back into a staff, and He also gave him two more signs so that the people of Israel and Pharaoh would know that he had been sent by God. By this point in the conversation, Moses knows that his cause is already lost. The odds are against him. He knows that he has to hit a home run with God in terms of coming up with a formidable excuse that will take him out of the running and finally make God understand that he is not the right man, that God went to the wrong address.

And He arrived there in the desert of Maridan when that was not actually where He was supposed to arrive. He was supposed to go somewhere else to find someone else. And look at what he tells Him, at what Moses comes up with. In chapter 4, verse 10: “Then Moses said to the LORD: ‘Oh, Lord! I have never been a man of ready speech, neither before nor since You have spoken to Your servant, for I am slow of speech and clumsy of tongue.’” I think many of us can identify with that, can’t we?

When we are given an opportunity and told: “Look, you can pray publicly about such-and-such, you can give a five-minute devotional, you can do this or that.” “You can lead this group; you can open your home for a small-group meeting.” Right away, what comes to mind is, “Oh! But I am not very good in that area.” But it is interesting that this is also one of Moses’ areas of apparent weakness. By now Moses has witnessed conclusive evidence of God’s power, and he says to God—after seeing so many wonders—

He has already seen the staff turn into a snake, the snake turn back into a staff, and other things besides. He has seen the bush that burned without being consumed. He has been speaking with the God of the Universe, but that has not inspired him enough, and look at the excuse he gives Him: “I do not have the oratory skills You need, God.” “That is not my thing.” “I think You already know; we have already talked enough. By now You should understand that I am not the one You are looking for.”

And God gives him an answer that goes straight to the heart of Moses’ foolishness. He tells him in verse 11: “Who gave man his mouth, or who made the world and the deaf, the seeing and the blind? Is it not I, the LORD? Now then, go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you are to say.” In other words: “Moses, very good excuse, but go—you’re going to Egypt. You are going there. You are going to Egypt. You are the one I have appointed for this.”

The God of the Universe has the resources to equip us in our area of lack or weakness; that is what we have to believe. And look at this phrase: God does not call the equipped; rather, He equips the called. Again: God does not call the equipped; rather, He equips the called. That is for you and for me. He does not extend a call in order to push us toward failure. God is not crazy. He is not going to do that to us. He is not going to say, “You can do it—go on, jump into the water,” and then leave us to sink and drown. He will not do that, because He is a God of love.

Our part is to believe and move forward in faith. And we might think that everything would end there. But Moses insisted on continuing to focus on himself and his limitations instead of shifting his gaze to the Almighty. And in verse 13 we see Moses say to Him: “Oh, Lord! [Again: Oh, Lord!] Please send someone else, the one You should send.” Again, it is not me; You made a mistake. Look for the other person, the one You need to send.

And finally this angered God. Even so, God did not cast Moses aside, thereby showing him His eternal attributes of patience and mercy. God took it up again because He knew that Moses was His answer to the need of His people. Despite this very fragile beginning, Moses grew in faith—in his faith. In fact, I encourage you—obviously, what we can share about Moses’ life in this amount of time is very little—to read it in full, from beginning to end. It is a wonderful story containing so many lessons for our personal lives, for our ministry lives, and for leadership.

For many areas of our lives. So I encourage you to keep reading and to understand more about God’s process, God’s call upon Moses’ life, and how God used him. Thus, despite this very fragile, very humble beginning for Moses there in the desert, he grew in faith. And how did this happen? He walked side by side with God, casting off his human mindset, his purely natural mindset.

He gradually cast it off and acquired a supernatural mindset concerning the power of God, what a calling is, and what it means to grow in the Lord. He decided to embrace God’s call for his life, with all its privileges and joys as well as its responsibilities and difficulties. That is why we see that Moses is included in Hebrews chapter 11, the chapter about the heroes of faith. If we go there, to Hebrews chapter 11, from verse 24 onward it says: “By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the temporary pleasures of sin,

considering the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of the Egyptians, because he had his eyes fixed on the reward.” And from there onward, another part of the passage goes on to say other things about what Moses was able to accomplish precisely because he had put his faith in God into action. And I want to conclude with a very interesting verse found [if the musicians could come forward, please] in Exodus 4:20, which takes place when Moses has already become convinced that it is God who has called him and is on his way to Egypt.

Then the verse says this, Exodus 4:20: “Then Moses took his wife and his sons, set them on a donkey, and returned to the land of Egypt.” And look at this part of the verse: “Moses also took the staff of God in his hand.” Until that moment, the staff had been the symbol of his life and occupation for 40 years. It was a possession, a treasure belonging to Moses. But now, at this moment, when we have reached this verse, a spiritual transformation has already taken place in Moses. He is now thinking differently.

Now he has yielded the staff to God, and it is no longer Moses’ staff. Until then, for 40 years, it had been Moses’ staff: that is my staff. It is a symbol of my life. Now it is no longer Moses’ staff but God’s staff. And I believe that we too—each one of us, if we extend that symbolism—have a staff. And what does your staff symbolize? Your staff may be your occupation, your talents, your financial resources, your possessions, your job, or your family. In other words, everything that represents you. That is your staff.

And I believe that today the Lord invites us to do the same thing Moses did: to follow his example and surrender our personal staff to Him, with everything that may entail. And do you know why? Because He knows that you are His answer to a need. That is what I want you to take away with you today. God knows; He needs the surrender of your heart and of your staff because He knows that you are the answer to a need. He has already joined the two together.

And I also want you to know that you must not underestimate or despise even what seems like a small calling. In the Kingdom of God, there is no such thing as small callings and great callings. If God has called you to quietly visit the sick in a hospital, even without the church leaders knowing about it, then that is what God has called you to do. If God has called you to pick up the phone and encourage those who need encouragement, that is your calling; embrace it. If God has called you to preach, begin preparing yourself to preach.

If God has called you to open your home so that others may be healed through your counsel, do that as well. In other words, do not look down on it or underestimate it. And the other thing is that callings begin small—we obviously cannot cover Moses’ entire life right now, but he took those small steps of faith. The first step was to look at the bush and investigate; after that, to listen to God and interact with Him; then to go to his father-in-law Jethro and tell him, “I am leaving here. I am going back; I am going to visit my family in Egypt.” And he took his family with him.

Along the way, God continued the transformation in Moses’ heart. That is what He does. What God expects from us is for our hearts to be sensitive to Him; for us to desire to do His will; for us to look at the need around us and say, “That need is mine to meet because God has sent me to do it.” So do not look down on what seems tiny. Many great modern heroes of the faith began by cleaning bathrooms.

But they did it because they knew that this was what God had called them to do at that moment: to clean the bathrooms until they shone as brightly as possible, making them the cleanest bathrooms on Earth. And from there God went on to take them out and call them onward. God changes our calling as our life progresses in Him. So embrace your calling. Ask God; have that conversation with God: “What do You want me to do, Lord?”

But always remember that what matters most is what we are, not what we do. Yet at the same time, God is glorified and pleased by our offering of service to Him. So this morning we are going to close by praying the prayer of surrendering our staff. Imagine that you have your staff, which represents who you are. So let us stand. Good Christians stand up to make declarations. Imagine that you have your staff in your hand, and let us surrender it to the Lord. Let us ask the Lord to use it for His honor and glory.

Lord, at this moment and this morning, on this day, Lord, we present before You our staff, Lord, which represents what we are, what we do, our occupation, our resources, and even our deficiencies, our limitations, and our weaknesses, Lord. And sometimes a past that has been difficult, Lord. Lord, it does not matter what situation we are in now, Lord—whether it is an easy situation of peace and happiness or a desert in our lives, Lord.

We present to You that staff, which represents what we have already told You. Lord, we now want to renounce the idea that the staff is ours. It is not my staff, Lord; it is no longer mine. It no longer bears my name; it now bears Your name. I ask You, Lord, to sanctify my staff and use it for Your work and Your glory, Lord. Lord, take my staff to places I never imagined. Lord, use me for Your glory. Lord, here I am before You, with an open heart, willing for You to work in me; take me wherever You want, Lord.

Lord, allow me to see the needs around me, and teach me to direct my steps wherever You want me to take them, Lord; guide my steps and my walk. Make me a useful worker, Lord—a worker who brings glory to Your name first, Lord, and who brings a smile to Your lips, Lord. Father, may my acts of service be filled with joy and total surrender. We love You, Lord. Today I give You who I am, longing for You to use me.

Lord, not so that my name may be exalted, but so that Yours may be exalted, Lord, in this time. Father, in this time when we are expecting a great harvest through the revival that is coming soon, Lord, I ask You, Lord, that there not be just two or three people in this church doing Your work and becoming overburdened. Instead, may hundreds and even thousands of people rise up in this place, willing to do Your work, whose staffs bear Your name, Lord.

May that, Lord, be the truth in our church—the reality, Lord, of this community: to be used greatly by You. May we not look to the person beside us to do it, but rather to what we ourselves must do and to what You have called us to do, being faithful in whatever You assign to each one of us, Lord. Working as a team, Lord—a well-coordinated working team, Lord, in perfect unity before You, Lord. Thank You, Father.

Lord, raise up this people, Lord, for Your work and Your glory, Lord, and use us effectively, Lord—one hundred percent, Lord—in this time and until You come, Lord. Thank You, Father. In Jesus’ name, amen.