Great Tests of Faith: When God Pushes Our Envelope
Exodus 3:9-12, 4:1-5, 10-17; Acts 10:9-17, 28-29
A Sermon Delivered by Rev. Thomas J. Boone, PhD
Central Presbyterian Church, Mobile AL, Sept. 30, 2007

Becky never thought she’d be doing it, but there she was donning a pair of work gloves, wearing a mask, and covered with grime from moving mud-soaked furniture out of a house nearly leveled by Katrina. The church had put out a call for volunteers but she had never considered such grimy work. She thought she had neither the training, stamina, or interest for working in such conditions. This kind of work was way outside her comfort zone, but on Sunday she felt like God was nudging her so she signed up, and on Monday she showed up.

Looking around the office where he had worked for ten years, Doug felt something between excitement and anxiety. He still didn’t think he was cut out for what was to come. This was his last day in his office and the beginning of a new life. He wasn’t retiring, and neither was he changing firms. Five years ago it began as a whisper that he didn’t share with anyone and that he thought was a silly notion. Three years ago the whisper became an undeniable nudge, which he shared with his wife. She said little other than to talk to the Pastor about it, which he did one year later. Then for two years he taught Sunday School, became a Stephen Minister, and took his elder position much more seriously. Finally, he and his wife agreed that indeed God was calling Doug into full time ministry, which meant leaving his law practice and going back to school. It meant leaving a good income, making reductions in spending and leading a simpler life, and facing the question from friends, “Why in the world would you do that?” He often wondered the same thing to himself, but he wasn’t going to turn back now.

Life beyond our comfort zones. Sometimes it’s a voluntary decision to venture into uncomfortable things, other times it happens to us without being asked for. In fact, living beyond the reaches of our comfort brings self-doubt, puzzlement, and even fear because it means survival outside our perceived strengths and doing things on God’s strength alone. On one hand, following God outside our comfort zones forces us to come face to face with our weaknesses and self-perceived inabilities. On the other hand, it forces us to reconcile what we say we believe with the way we actually live. Do we trust in God, or not? That’s a question we can only answer by living outside our comfort zones.

Moses had a lot going for him when he was in Egypt. Moses grew up as a child in Pharaoh’s court, which meant that he received as fine an education as possible, had access to all the privileges of royalty, and was “the man” everywhere he traveled. There were many things he could do, and if we read in between the lines of the Exodus story here are a few of the things: he could administrate large groups of people and he was able to gather around him skilled advisors. Apparently, he didn’t know the difference between right and left, but he did know the difference between right and wrong. He was a man of great passion who applied himself wholeheartedly to his job. God didn’t just bless him with these things magically, but likely these are qualities he nurtured since his childhood in Egypt. He was reared to be a leader.

But when God called Moses to lead His people out of Egypt, Moses wasn’t in Pharaoh’s court anymore. He had gone into exile. Talk about downsizing! He’d exchanged a royal scepter for a shepherd’s staff. He’d swapped a king’s son’s cushion for a mat made of thatch and wheat. He’d pawned a signet ring for the dowry needed to marry a shepherd’s daughter. When God spoke to Moses through the burning bush, Moses wasn’t royalty, he was common.

Downsizing can be hard on anyone. In a world that says to be more you have to get more, giving things up doesn’t make much sense. It can make others wonder about us. Maybe we weren’t all that smart with our money. Maybe we weren’t good enough in our job. Maybe we did something wrong. The list of maybes abound, but each maybe is a judgment upon us and our abilities that can take a toll on the way we see ourselves until we stop seeing ourselves the way God sees us.

That’s what happened to Moses. In his downsized life it was easy for him to believe the voices of ghosts from schoolmates in Alexandria Private Academy: you don’t speak like one of us, and you don’t look like us. He wasn’t one of them. Unacceptable. He was adopted. Was he so unacceptable by his family that his mother had decided to send him down a river rather than find some other way to keep him? One day he must’ve put two and two together: the people his father ruled were the people he looked like and sounded like. Finding out he was one of them must’ve brought tremendous guilt. How many of those people whom he had mocked were actually “his” people? Unacceptable, unworthy, unsuitable: it was unimaginable to him that after his exile he’d do anything other than hole away as a shepherd. He didn’t have to talk there, he was safe away from his previous life, and had finally found his comfort zone.

So, when God spoke to Moses through the burning bush perhaps now we understand why Moses resisted: I can’t speak well, I can’t do miracles, I can’t convince people to follow me, I can’t overcome my past, I can’t...I can’t...I can’t. Resisting God with our “can’ts” is familiar turf for many of us. I wonder if you’ve ever pondered God’s reaction to Moses’ resistance. God was angry and He let Moses know it. But why was God angry?

In his book Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis describes many of the temptations and spiritual peaks and valleys that we go through. It’s interesting how Lewis describes the temptation to remain in our comfort zones. “One of the enemy’s best weapons,” writes Lewis, is “contented worldliness.” We accept that life involves some degree of discomfort and pain, but in general we buy into the notion that there is birth, living, and dying in that order. Our goal is to glorify God, sure, but we do this in certain ways. We give to the church as we are able. We go to church as we can or from a sense of duty. We do what we can, and we try not to rock the boat too much. We believe that God wants us to do certain things, and we grow comfortable with those things.

But then someone on the worship committee calls to ask you to read in church, and you resist because you’re not the public reader type. You hear about the mission trip to Mexico year after year thinking it might be a good thing to do, but you never go. Someone at work or school seems to be lonely and sad, but you’re not comfortable talking even though it might be a chance to share your joy in Jesus. God may not be speaking to us through a burning bush, but God has many ways of speaking. We may not be Moses, but we know what it means to get comfortable with what we’re doing and resist moving outside the envelope.

Peter once thought that serving God well wouldn’t involve moving outside his area of comfort. He was a faithful Christian, but he was also a Jew. For a Jew to get involved with Gentile affairs and share their food or enter their homes was an offense. But then comes this dream that we read about in Acts. It was his burning bush, and God’s voice couldn’t have been clearer. “Take my name even to the Gentiles and be among them without fear.” This would be like you waking up from a dream one morning and feeling like God had told you to do the one thing that you had been reared your whole life to think was the antithesis of all that you considered religious or spiritually right. God wanted Peter to trust Him even outside his comfort zones, and He wants the same from us.

And that’s the reason why God was angry with Moses when he said “I can’t speak well. Send someone else.” That statement signifies a failure to trust God. When God asked Moses to lead He wasn’t rewarding Moses on account of his proven expertise; He wanted to show the world that with God by his side Moses could do anything. With God by our side we can do anything, we can endure anything.

When he was a senior in high school Ross Phelps sat with his mother in a pediatrics office waiting room in Bethesda, Maryland. Ross left his mom to see the surgeons first and then they summoned his mother, Elaine. Walking down the hallway the surgeon said words that would change a family’s life forever. “Dr. Sugarbaker and I have just told Ross that his condition appears to be osteosarcoma. If the biopsy confirms this, his left arm will have to be amputated,” (The Best I Can, 14).

Days later the anxiously awaited call came. “Tell Ross the test came back positive. The surgery will be on Thursday.” Wondering what this would mean for herself, Ross’ mother asked a friend who was a physician, “What is this going to mean for me?” “You’ll have to quit working, Elaine.”

Their story isn’t one of miraculous healing where everything worked out. Elaine and her husband, Bill, divorced on account of the stress through their son’s cancer and the financial burden that ensued. The cancer did eventually take Ross’ life. Yet, their story is one of triumph. Ross endured many hospitalizations as the cancer progressed from his arm to other parts of his body. Through three separate instances of metastases Ross graduated from Spring Hill College, founded an ongoing publication, traveled to do work in Prague, and graduated from American University in Washington, D.C. All the while, cancer remained the constant burning bush through which God spoke to Ross and his family. And in response they simply said, “We’ll do the best we can.” Like every human they stumbled forward kissing the joys as they passed by them. But, thrust from their comfortable living, they became living testimonies that God could work through anything.

God doesn’t want us to be Moses or Peter, he just wants us to trust Him outside our comfort zones. When God speaks to us through the burning bush, He expects us to do the best we can rather than retreat into a world of anger, bitterness, and curses.

Burning bushes come in many forms. For Becky it was Katrina, for Doug it was a nudge into full time ministry, for Ross and his family it was an aggressive cancer named osteosarcoma. What’s your burning bush? Maybe it’s a retirement home. Maybe it’s a physical problem or illness that you’ve not been able to shake for years. Maybe it’s a child or grandchild whose circumstances have turned your life upside down. Maybe it’s divorce. Maybe it’s teaching Sunday School or serving on the Pastor Nominating Committee. Maybe it’s the call to be faithful stewards in your giving to God His tithe. What’s your burning bush? Whatever it is, God’s asking you to trust Him enough to walk outside your comfort zone, and do your best. But here’s the thing: you won’t be alone. Because God will be with you, you will triumph. With God by your side you can do anything that He calls you to do. Do the best you can, let God worry about the rest, and kiss the joys when they pass you by. That’s the essence of a living faith and it’s why we proclaim every week the lordship of Christ in our lives. Jesus Christ is Lord, and with Him you can do all things! Hallelujah. Amen.