TEXT: EXODUS 3:11, 4:10
But Moses said to God, ” I am nobody. How can I go to the king and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”………No, Lord, don’t send me. I have never been a good speaker, and I haven’t become one since you began to speak to me. I am a poor speaker, slow and hesitant.”
This weekend, I’ve been thinking about the “unlikely person.” He or she seems to have the least chance of winning. There is some obvious disqualification in this person’s level of connections, beauty, speech, talents, level of education, family background et cetra. You and I would very likely despise such a person at first sight.
During the time of Christ Jews thought of Samaritans as second-class citizens, half breeds and apostates. If you were travelling from the Galilean region in the North( Nazareth, Cana, Carpernaum etc) to Jerusalem in the South, the most direct route would be straight through Samaria. However, Jews would add another day of travel just to go around Samaria instead of through it because they didn’t want to tarnish their reputations by associating or even coming in contact with this despised group of people. Jesus did not let this barrier deter him from carrying out God’s eternal plan to make disciples of all nations. Instead, he and his disciples went directly through Samaria and ministered to the people of that nation.
In John 14:1-26, the woman at the well wasn’t exactly the mayor of the community. She wasn’t serving in the city council. She wasn’t even prominent at the women’s club. She was going to get water at the well, doing servant’s work. But Jesus did not think himself better than her; rather, he freely engaged her in conversation.
Jesus and the Samaritan woman didn’t have a lot of apparent common ground. He was a Jew, she a Samaritan. He was holy, she was wicked. He was a teacher, she was uneducated. At the time, he was respected, she was scorned in her society. But Jesus was tired and thirsty, and the woman had a jug to draw water. The woman was thirsty spiritually, and Jesus could give her the living water. He(Jesus) did not condemn her or focus on her shortcomings but treated her with respect. He won over her heart, and she convinced everyone in her town to meet Jesus, the Messiah.
While people look at the outward appearances, God looks at the inner person. Every day we write people off for almost any reason we imagine, forgetting that they are as much God’s precious creation as we are and that Christ died for them too.
By worldly standards, Esau was a man’s man; an outdoors man and a hunter, a masculine physique, hairy, fearless and the pride of his father Isaac. On the other hand, Jacob was a con artist, an indoors man and he seems to us to be a sissy and a mother’s boy who was always hanging around the kitchen. We imagine that God would quite naturally pick out Esau for a great generational blessing, I mean he had the markings of a true varlour. Yet, it was Jacob upon whom the eternal blessing fell. Think about Joseph too; he had a gift for attracting bad luck! Every time he seemed to rise he sank deeper and became more obscure Saul, persecuted the early church before he became an apostle. Yet, God saw him as chosen, full of the spirit, prophetically anointed……..David too, spent many years in frustrations in the wilderness as a fugitive before he became a king. Many such like stories are repeated across the Bible; of men and women of faith who were tried under severe circumstances before God elevated them. Some of them even died in the test of faith, but this was so that they might obtain a greater and eternal reward.
I want us, however, to think especially about Moses, who is my central character today. The above passage describes him as a “nobody, poor speaker, slow and hesitant.” Some Bible commentaries suggest that he was a stammerer; used to speak with involuntary pauses or repetition, as a result of a speech disorder. Others say he was ‘slow of speech and tongue.’ In any case, it is obvious that he was insecure; he did not believe in himself to accomplish the task that God had given him, of delivering Israelites from Egypt. So, he is just the perfect model of what it means to be unlikely person.
In 1 Corinthians 1:27-29, we see that God gets the most glory of the wretches of the world; the foolish, the weak, the poor and the unknown. The disciples of Christ were just such: they were uneducated manual laborers with no family or any other important distinction. But we have honored them for two thousand years, and they will be honored for eternity. ” The city’s wall was built on twelve foundation stones, on which were written the names of the twelve apostles of the lamb.” Revelation 21:14.
In Colossians 1:12 we read, “:…….giving thanks to the Father Who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light.” If you have Christ living in you by faith, God has approved that you should be among the number of the blessed forever.
God wants to show His strength through our weaknesses, to be glorified through what we are ashamed of, through that which people make fun of us. AMEN!
JUDY 