Episode 1353: Who Am I?

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining me on episode 1, 353 of the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

[00:00:07] Kristen and Jeffrey Ingram: I'm Kristen. And I'm Jeff. From Small Biz Life Podcast. If your calling is to be a small business owner, we challenge you to grow yourself and find your true identity so you can be empowered to live your calling. One way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this.

[00:00:23] The Inspired Stewardship Podcast with our friend, Scott.

[00:00:33] Scott Maderer: When maybe the God that we seek is right in front of us all of the time, if we simply opened our eyes and saw that God was there, God was just there in a way that we didn't expect, that we didn't know, that we maybe don't even want. But that is the relationship that Jesus is calling us into. Welcome and thank you for joining us on the [00:01:00] Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

[00:01:02] If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent, and your treasures for your true calling. In the Inspired Stewardship Podcast, you will learn to invest in yourself, Invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

[00:01:28] In today's Spiritual Foundation episode, I talk about both Exodus 3, verses 1 15 and Matthew 16, verses 21 28. I talk about how the God we seek often shows up in unexpected ways. And I also talk about how that revelation comes. Even when we were unworthy. Exodus chapter 3 verses 1 through 15 says, Moses was keeping the flock of his father in law Jethro, the priest of Midian.

[00:01:59] He led [00:02:00] his flock beyond the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush. He looked and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. Then Moses said, I must turn aside and look at this great sight and see why the bush is not burned up.

[00:02:18] When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush Moses, and he said, Here I am. Then he said, Come no closer, remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground. He said further, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.

[00:02:39] And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. Then the Lord said, I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt. I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings. And I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a [00:03:00] land flowing with milk and honey.

[00:03:02] To the country of the Cainites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. The cry of the Israelites has now come to me. I've also seen how the Egyptians oppress them. So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt. But Moses said to God, Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?

[00:03:27] He said, I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you. When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain. But Moses said to God, If I come to the Israelites and say to them, The God of your ancestors has sent me to you, and they ask me, What is his name?

[00:03:46] What shall I say to them? God said to Moses, I am who I am. He said further, Thus you shall say to the Israelites, I am has sent me to you. God also said to Moses, [00:04:00] Thus you shall say to the Israelites, The Lord, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.

[00:04:08] This is my name forever, and this is my title for all generations. Matthew chapter 16, verses 21 through 28 says, From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.

[00:04:30] And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, God forbid it, Lord, this must never happen to you. But he turned and said to Peter, Get behind me, Satan, you are a stumbling block to me, for you are setting your mind not on divine things, but on human things. Then Jesus told his disciples, if want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.

[00:04:56] For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose [00:05:00] their life, for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life, or what will they give in return for their life? For the son of man is to come with his angels in the glory of his father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done.

[00:05:17] Truly, I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the son of man coming in his kingdom.

[00:05:28] I live out in the country and oftentimes because of that, I have the opportunity of seeing a beautiful night sky or a wonderful sunset or sunrise and seeing nature in that way allows you sometimes to recognize the beauty of God in those moments of nature. Currently, we have a mom fox and her two little babies living across the street that we get to see in the evenings as they run [00:06:00] along and are looking for food and other things.

[00:06:04] I wonder sometimes if Moses was out enjoying the scenery as he wandered around on that mountain, looking at the majestic mountain, taking care of the sheep, paying attention to the cloud strewn sky. Did he see the beauty of that mountain? We know for sure that this bush caught his eye, this burning bush.

[00:06:28] Who knew that on that mountain in the back of beyond, Moses would stumble across God, or rather, God would show up for Moses. I doubt Moses got up that morning thinking that this was going to happen. He definitely wasn't out looking for God. And come to think of it, he really didn't even want to be found at all.

[00:06:50] He was in hiding in his self imposed witness protection program. Hiding out from the authorities back home because [00:07:00] he was a wanted man. Because he'd let his temper get the best of him. And whether you call it righteous or an act of justice or protecting the downtrodden, it doesn't matter. He still had committed murder.

[00:07:13] And the pharaohs... People were looking for him and even the adopted grandson of the king couldn't get away with murder. So Moses had run for his life across the desert with blood dripping from his hands. At least that's what he felt like. His dreams were filled with those moments and that moment of killing that man, at least for a while.

[00:07:39] But over time, the years had passed. And maybe he'd begun to move on to forget or at least put it to one side. Maybe he'd even forgotten that he was that rescued Hebrew baby boy that grew up in the palace. And now he was just following sheep up the mountain. And that's what he [00:08:00] saw for himself for the rest of time.

[00:08:02] Just following the sheep in this dusty middle of nowhere. Except God showed up. God showed up and said, take off your shoes. The bush said it, this burning but not consumed bush. And maybe that's what had gotten his attention, that idea of something that is burning and being consumed, like Moses had probably felt I don't know about you but I often feel.

[00:08:29] And maybe it was this idea of something that was on fire but not consumed, had passion yet was not burned out. Maybe that was what caused him to pay attention for a moment. And the Bush said that they'd come to help because they'd seen the broken heartness of the people of Israel and they were there to help.

[00:08:53] You got to wonder if Moses went exactly how is a bush gonna help? And the bush said I'm gonna help because I'm gonna [00:09:00] send you. Moses had that moment of I'm not a hero. How could I do anything to rescue the Israelites? How could I act in such a way? But in some way, he eventually makes his way back across the desert to the land he'd abandoned, and he went there with a mission, an impossible mission, honestly, one that he probably didn't believe he could fulfill.

[00:09:31] I am who I am, said the voice, and that... command, that idea had to echo in his brain. I will be who I will be. Tell them I am sent you. I am will be with you. What a strange thought. And yet maybe he had seen those moments in creation. Maybe God was present in that creation even though Moses had doubts [00:10:00] and hesitations and worries and felt unworthy.

[00:10:04] God had promised to be with him, to be with him through that. But now things are gonna get messy. Now they're walking into a hornet's nest. Think about the passage from Matthew. Notice how quickly Peter has fallen from grace. Just last week, just a few verses earlier, Peter was on the top of the class.

[00:10:29] Jesus was calling him out and giving him pats on the back and applause from the crowd. And now he's saying, get behind me, Satan. Talk about a big fall from grace. And all he was trying to do was stand up for Jesus, in a way. He just said, Hey Christ, I can't comprehend that you have to suffer and die, that someone's going to get the upper hand on you.

[00:10:54] You're the son of God. You're here to turn things over. You're here to make [00:11:00] things different. You're not here to suffer and die. The passage in Matthew says he rebuked him. God forbid, get behind me, Satan, these sorts of things, but you can't help but wonder what else he might have said. He says, let me say this again, that the conception of Christ that Peter had didn't fit the story that Jesus was telling him.

[00:11:31] It just didn't compute, and so Peter argued with him. Think about it. We carry that around in our own head a lot of times. We have a pretty clear idea of what our Savior should be doing, how our Savior should act, who's on the inside and who's on the outside, how the if Jesus would just do it this way, it just fit the mold that we have.

[00:11:55] Everything would be so easy, [00:12:00] but that's not what Jesus is doing here. We pick a superhero over this kind of Jesus. Jesus does say, hey, I'm going to be coming back soon. But then he says there are some standing here who will not taste death. Do you, people argue, does that mean he miscommunicated the timing?

[00:12:24] Does that mean there's someone still walking around who was there that day? What, why are we still waiting? But the very next chapter begins with the story of the transfiguration. We're a select few got to see something. Maybe that was the moment he was talking about. We don't know. We tend to think in terms of battles and punishment and judgment and power and winners and losers.

[00:12:54] And Jesus is trying to show us something else. Show us presence, community, [00:13:00] connection, and relationship. We're looking at the wrong things. We're looking for love in all the wrong places, just like Moses was stumbling around in the wilderness looking after the sheep and maybe almost missed the presence of God.

[00:13:17] Peter was stumbling around in the countryside and missed the presence of God, and we do the same thing. When maybe the God that we seek is right in front of us all of the time, if we simply opened our eyes and saw... saw that God was there. God was just there in a way that we didn't expect, that we didn't know, that we maybe don't even want.

[00:13:43] But that is the relationship that Jesus is calling us into. Thanks for listening.

[00:13:55] Thanks so much for listening to the Inspired Stewardship Podcast. [00:14:00] As a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you enjoyed this episode, do me a favor. Go over to facebook. com slash inspired stewardship.

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