Episode 1677: Acceptance

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Scott Maderer: [00:00:00] Thanks for joining me on episode 1,677 of the Inspired Stewardship podcast.

Wilk Wilkinson: I'm Wilk Wilkinson. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence, and impact the world by using your time, your talent, and your treasures to live out your calling. Having the ability to interact with others while seeing the humanity in them is key, and one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the Inspired Stewardship podcast with my friend Scott Maderer.

Scott Maderer: This is my path. It means taking it on wholeheartedly, grabbing it with both hands, and diving in fully saying, "I know this is gonna be a wild ride, but I'm in for it. Let's go." That is the model for the [00:01:00] leadership of following Christ.

Welcome, and thank you for joining us on the Inspired Stewardship

podcast.

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

Wilk Wilkinson: can impact the world

Scott Maderer: In today's Spiritual Foundation episode, I talk about Exodus 3:1-15 and Matthew 16:21-28. I talk about how we all need to accept our call, and I also talk about how that acceptance leads to not acquiescence, but wholeheartedly leaning into everything. Exodus [00:02:00] 3:1-15 says, "Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian.

He led his flocks beyond the wilderness and came to Mount 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.'

When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, 'Moses, 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.'

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 [00:03:00] Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the county of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.

The cry of the Israelites has now come to me. I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them. Now go. I am sending 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?' 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 serve 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?" 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. This is my name forever, and this 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.

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 hindrance to me, for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.' Then Jesus told His disciples, 'If any wish to come after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.

For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they [00:05:00] 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.

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.'" I live in Texas. I've, I've lived here my whole life, and I've often traveled. Texas is such a huge state that driving across the state or driving from one city to another, often you have to get up and leave in the wee hours of the morning.

And on those drives home, when you really ought to be sleeping and not driving, one of the wonderful things that you sometimes get to glimpse is a beautiful sunrise or perhaps in the evening, a beautiful sunset, where it looks like God has dipped a brush in those red colors [00:06:00] and flung streaks across the blue of the sky, bright and clear and beautiful.

In Texas, you often see wildflowers growing on the side of the road or out into the field, growing, and again, the beauty of God. You may see a, a hawk or an animal, a coyote or a fox scurrying along beside the highway. Enjoying the scenery and being alive in nature is something that we resonate with. And in this first passage from Exodus, you have to wonder if Moses was enjoying the scenery of the mountain as he wandered around being a shepherd.

Being a shepherd is a, a busy job, but at the same time, it's one where you spend a lot of time standing and watching. Did he notice the majestic beauty of the mountains around him? Was [00:07:00] he paying attention to not just the sheep, but the beauty of God's creation? And the passage goes on and we see that at least one part of nature caught Moses' eye the bush.

God lit a bush on fire, making Moses stumble across God, and it's very clear that Moses was surprised by this. If you think about it, Moses was here because he was hiding out. He had committed murder back in Egypt, and now he's hiding out. He's sort of in the witness relocation program. He's hiding from the authorities, and yet here he is being called out by God.

He'd let his temper get the best of him. It might have been righteous anger, it might have been an act of justice, but the truth is, to the authorities, to the Pharaoh, it was murder. [00:08:00] And even that adopted grandson of the Pharaoh was guilty of murder and couldn't get away with it, so he ran for his life.

He ran, and his dreams were probably filled with the worry and the memory of this crime, of the moment, this passion moment, at least for a while. But as the years passed, maybe he began to feel safe. Maybe he began to forget even. Maybe he began to forgive himself. This rescued Hebrew baby boy who grew up in the palace of the greatest king in the known world was here hiding, wanting to forget everything.

That's what he was. That's all he was good for, right? He was a shepherd in the dusty middle of nowhere. He was not exceptional. He was not somebody that was gifted, and here God shows up and says, "Take off your shoes." [00:09:00] This bush that's burning but not consumed, this bush that had drawn his attention. Here he was burning and being consumed, and yet here is something that is burned and not consumed.

Maybe it was hope, maybe it was concern, maybe it was curiosity, but he stepped out to see what it was, and it turned his entire life upside down. The bush says, "I'm here to help. I'm here because I see the pain of my people. I h-- I'm here because I hear them cry out, so I've come to help to set them free."

Moses may have thought, "What's a bush going to do?" And the an- bush answered, "I've come to help by sending you." See, often God shows up that way. God shows up by sending people. And Moses has the answer that I don't know about you, but I know I've had from time to time when God has [00:10:00] tried to send me somewhere, "What?

I'm not a hero. I'm not capable. I'm not able to do this. I'm just a, I'm just a shepherd," Moses said And right And God answered, "Yeah, but I'll be with you." And who you are is exactly who you need to be And Moses turns back and says, "Who do I tell them sent me?" "I am who I am. I will be who I will be.

Tell them that I Am sent you and I Am will be with you." Kind of a weird answer in a way, but here's the secret that Moses has been told, and Moses came to a point where he accepted it. He went back. He [00:11:00] went back out of this sanctuary from the scene of his crime. He went back out of hiding. He came to the courts of the Pharaoh, and he did what he was supposed to do.

Some way, somehow, he moved to acceptance, and he moved forward. That's kind of what this passage from Matthew is about, too. This passage picks up right after the last week when we talked about Peter getting the answer right, Peter saying, "You are the Messiah," to Jesus and being held up and said, "You are the rock on whom I'm going to build the church."

And then he begins to talk, Jesus does, about what's going to happen. What's going to happen. This celebratory moment turns into a horror story of death and dismissal. Here Peter is with the keys to the kingdom, and now [00:12:00] Peter is listening to Jesus talk about torture and suffering and execution and death and crucifixion.

And at some point he explodes. He says, "That's not what a Messiah is supposed to do. The Messiah is the conquering hero. The M-Messiah is the victory one. The Messiah has power and authority and makes things right, overthrows the oppressors. You're going to get rid of the Romans. That's what a Messiah does.

Yeah, there's relief for the suffering and reclaiming the right to exist, but not torture, not execution, not these horrible things." It's not really clear what Peter exactly said, but Jesus pulls him over and says, "I rebuke you." the Greek word is epitimo, which means rebuke or warn or admonish strongly.

You don't know what [00:13:00] exactly was said, but you have to imagine Peter said, "You're the Messiah. You're the son of the living God." And Jesus said, "No, this is what's going to happen to me. This is my fate." And he said, "God forbid it, Lord, this must never happen to you." And by doing that, Peter is now standing in the way of the very message, the very meaning, the very thing that Christ had come to do, to show not a conquering Messiah, but one that conquers through sacrificial love, one that shows that power is vulnerable, one that shows that you live service and surrender, not power and destruction.

And he's called out as an adversary. The Satan word means adversary. And any kind of faith that centers power over service, nation over [00:14:00] humanity, supremacy over equality, is adversarial to the faith of Christ. And at some point, Ha- Peter comes to acceptance about who Christ is, but not now, not at this moment.

At some point when things come clean and come clear, and I think it might've been much, much later. Realize acceptance does not mean acquiescence. Instead, it means grabbing hold, climbing on, and saying, "This is my path." It means taking it on wholeheartedly, grabbing it with both hands, and diving in fully, saying, "I know this is gonna be a wild ride, but I'm in for it.

Let's go." That is the model for the leadership of following Christ. Thanks for listening.[00:15:00]

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