Do like Moses and surrender your rod to God

The main way that we can show our sincere love to the Lord is through our service. Serving Him with a surrendered heart. Each one of us is moved when you ask someone for something and that person with so much pleasure and delight goes and does what you ask, according to the need that you have.

How beautiful is that! TRUE? When we say to a child "Please go, bring me water" and that little boy runs, or that adolescent runs to the kitchen, he brings us that water, he pours ice into it, he brings it in a small dish, a napkin and everything else. And he gives it to us with love.

That softens our hearts, right?, and strengthens relationships. Likewise, it is with our Heavenly Father when we are obedient to Him and serve Him according to what He has commanded us. Likewise, He delights in our offering and is glad. We have to offer to Him with a joyful heart and we also gladden the heart of God. Just because 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 that you have been serving the Lord for a long time, it does not matter that you have reached his Kingdom today. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if you are young, child, young adult or if you are a person of age. It doesn't matter what has happened in your life. If you've had successes or failures or where you've been. That doesn't 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 deposited in each one.

God does not make mistakes, He knows, He knows our interior. He knows what he has deposited in each one, he knows how he can use us and he knows you inside and out and he also knows the needs that are around us. As if that were not enough, God has the resources that you and I need to grow in our calling and be obedient and serve Him as He needs us to serve. He is looking for willing hearts.

There is a verse that says that 'the eyes of Jehovah run to and fro throughout the earth to show his power on behalf of those who have a perfect heart toward him.' And there "perfection" does not mean that we have everything in order, ironed. What it means is that we have a willing, sensitive, teachable heart for Him to use us. So I believe that all of us want God to show his power on our behalf. So we are all included. Nobody, nobody escapes from that.

And the Bible has many examples of people, of men and women and children too, because we know that there are in the Word 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, totally ordinary, common people that God has used for his glory. And one of them is Moses. We find his life, his biography, as God used him in the Book of Exodus, which is the Second Book of the Word.

And before we get into Chapters 3 and 4 of Exodus I want us to do a very quick recount. I know that many know details of the life of Moses, but we are going to give a recount from a bird's eye view. We know that Moses was born a slave, to slave parents, in Israel – which was a nation that had been enslaved by Egypt for hundreds of years at the time God raised up Moses. He is born at a time when Pharaoh has declared an Edict that "every male born to the Hebrews must be eliminated."

And instead of doing this, the parents of Moses, in Faith, make a very important decision. Moisés's mother caulks a small casket, a basket, puts tar –asphalt- on it, protects it, seals it and puts it in the river with three-month-old baby Moisés inside the basket. Providentially, Pharaoh's daughter approaches that side of the river and sees him, she has compassion on him and the most important thing is that not only does God's provision stay there, but God manages to send this little baby to be raised by Moisés' biological mother.

So she is the one who is a nurse, breastfeeds him, perhaps we do not know – the Word does not say – how long. It may have been two, three, four years, but for a while Moisés was raised by his own mother. When he reached a certain age, he went to the King's palace as an adopted son of Pharaoh's daughter and there he lived in the most powerful country of that time. He was taught in all the arts, sciences of his time. He lived as a prince until he was 40 years old when one day he has to run for his life.

Because Pharaoh wants to kill him because he has killed an Egyptian for defending an Israelite from a Hebrew and obviously the wrath of Pharaoh is incurred and he has to flee. He runs away, leaves his life as a prince behind at the age of 40 and goes, then, to live, to dwell in the desert of Midian and there he is for another 40 years. And it is there at that time, at that crossroads in the life of Moses that I want us to enter for this afternoon's message.

And then we go to Exodus chapter 3 and we go to verse 2. There we find Moses herding sheep. It's been doing it, now, 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 he saw that the bush was burning with fire and the bush was not consumed. Then Moses said: "I will go now and from this great vision because cause the bush does not burn."

Seeing Jehovah that he was going to see, God called him in the middle of the bush and said: “Moses, Moses” and he answered “Here I am”. So that's a day that woke up just like any other in the desert. Moses did not expect anything out of the ordinary to happen but God reveals himself to him that day. Get Moses' attention with this bush that is burning on fire but is not consumed because something extraordinary is happening. Get Moses' attention. And it is important to note that this is when Moses puts aside his occupation.

Moses is grazing when he looks, he sees the bush and it is when he moves, he leaves where he is and moves to see what is happening. It is then that God speaks to him and he answers "Here I am." I think that this is an important detail because it is important that we be aware, alert to how God is speaking to us in our lives. If we see God speaking to us, He's over there and there's some indication that He wants to speak to us and we stay in the same place and don't make an attempt to connect with that, well nothing's going to happen.

There the matter remains. But Moses went to investigate and that's when God saw that he moved so he called him. It is possible that 40 or 50 years earlier, in his heyday as a prince in Egypt, Moses would have answered differently. Perhaps he would not have just said 'Here I am' but would have given us his resume as prince of Egypt. But right now God is speaking to a Moses who has gone through God's school in the desert.

He is no longer the Moses of before. It has been many years since that stage of his life ended and he is a different man. Moses has spent 40 years already in a secluded heir of the land with little accomplishment to his name. He has had a lot of time to meditate and to let go of the airs that perhaps he acquired when he was a prince in Egypt. That's why he simply answers 'Here I am'.

God cannot use you, he cannot use me, he could not have used Moses if he had been full of himself, with haughtiness and vainglory. Moses responded to God in the way that God needed to hear. This is how God wants us to answer Him, simply with a “Here I am”. We have to live in the continuous expectation that God speaks to us in the most common of days, in the most common of circumstances and even when we are or have passed through the desert. For a desert

As terrible as the desert of our life has been. At this stage of Moses' life, he is already 80 years old and surely already at 80 years old, what is one thinking? Not on making a career change, right? One makes those changes at 40, 45 at the latest. He is already 80 years old, so surely he already thought that he was going to continue working in the desert as a shepherd and that he was going to end his days there, raising his family, tending to their daily life things and grazing sheep.

In the eyes of the world, Moses could be considered a small thing. But for God it was different, do you know why? Because God does not look at appearances, He does not look at the external, He looks at the internal, He looks at the heart. He looks at what the person has inside, the willingness to be used by Him. God knew – like X-rays – the inside of Moses, so He knew that he was going to be a powerful instrument in His hands. And in addition to knowing God in this intimate way, God also knew the need of his people Israel.

If we see in verse 7 of the same chapter 3 of Exodus, look at what that verse says: ‘Then Jehovah said: “I have well seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and I have heard their cry because of their exactors; for I have known their anguish and have come down to deliver them out of the hands of the Egyptians.” That verse is very important and 'He has descended to deliver them from the hands of the Egyptians'. “And to bring them out of that land to a good and broad land, to a land flowing with milk and honey to the places” –from some towns that he mentions later.

And it continues in verse 9: "The cry, then, 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 this passage that God not only knows, he knows that Moses is going to be a good instrument in his hands, but he is also aware of the need of his people. A people who had been in slavery for over 400 years at that time and had long suffered terrible anguish at the hands of the Egyptians.

And God is aware. And making an aside on that point, how important it is to know that just as God was aware of the needs of his people Israel, likewise He is aware of our needs. So sometimes we think, we suffer alone, we have failures and we think that we are alone, that no one feels sorry for us, that the God of the Universe has forgotten us. But it's not like that. If he cared and knew the affliction of his people, how can 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 one is not alone, that at some point He will provide the opportune help.

And what we have to do in those times is not to solve situations our own way, quickly in the flesh, but to wait on Him and hope that He will guide us and give us the wisdom that we need. Because God's plans and intentions are always better than what we still have about ourselves.

Until verse 9, Moses had only heard – if we remember the passage – how the heart of God beat with respect to the pain and oppression of his people and about the fact that He had descended 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 what that verse says, because up to that point, Moses has said “Yes, Lord, it is true. How much my poor brothers suffer there!"

But in verse ten God already commits him and look at what he tells him: 'Come therefore now and I will send you to Pharaoh so that you may lead my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.' That sounds like he really meant what he was saying: “Come therefore now and I will send you” and he gives a very accurate, forceful call to Moses. God determined that Moses was his answer to the need of his people. I imagine that Moses' first reaction was to look back to see 'Could it be that he is speaking to someone else?'

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

'God has put this flame in me to work with children, to disciple children, to visit the sick in hospitals, to visit prisoners in jail'. Whatever it is that your heart is vibrating that you want for the Lord. But then we are not looking at ourselves as if we are God's answer but we are looking to see who is going to do it. So we play God, we are calling 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, in verse 11 it says: ‘Then Moses answered God: “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” So quite the opposite, you know, what is this? How am I going to do what you say? Evidently, Moses did not listen, he said.

If we go back to verse 8, we see that there clearly God was He, that is, God, not Moses, who came down to deliver his people from the hands of the Egyptians. However, Moses in his humanity before the assignment that God gives him, becomes paralyzed and focuses not on God but on himself. He doesn't focus on the power of God but focuses on himself and his own limitations that he also knew he had.

We are experts, we can give another a list with great detail of our shortcomings, our problems and what I do not have. That's what Moses focused on at that moment. When we are confronted with a call from God, we immediately play a movie from the past that screams at us, sometimes 'you are not qualified, you are not good for that. Be careful, you're going to fail, you failed before and now you know the third time's the charm. So you better stay where you are because you are taking a risk.

‘You are not worthy of being used by God because you have already failed him before. You did that, you have been doing that for so many years. You have not studied. You have a criminal record. In other words, a long list of things that immediately crosses our minds saying 'that must be for someone else. It's not for me. And I think that same thing happened to Moses. First he looked outside and what did he see? What did Moses see when he looked outside? Imagine him after 40 years in the desert. He saw her tanned skin, battered by the daily onslaught of the desert sun.

Forty years of sun is a lot, right? He saw the furrows on his skin –because remember that he was no longer a young person, he was already an 80-year-old person- and some rough hands from hard work in the desert. And he looked at his feet and saw them covered in the organic materials of the desert –that's to put it fine, right?- and he looked at his clothes and what did he see? Perhaps a threadbare cloth, faded by the sun. In other words, it wasn't such a nice appearance. That's a long time doing the same thing in an inhospitable environment.

Then, he looked at himself - he looked at himself first on the outside - on the inside and threaded many thoughts. He had a tremendous internal monologue. He may have said something like “in a remote time – a long time ago – I was someone, now I'm just a shepherd. It's too late to leave this and do something new. How am I going to know what to do if I show up there if it's been years since I've been to an Egyptian Court, much less speak to a Pharaoh? Besides, once in my life I thought that I could do something to free my people and it went very badly.

I decided to kill the Egyptian and instead of earning the respect, the gratitude of the Hebrews, what they did was that they despised me. They despised the act of bravery that I had. And not only that, but Pharaoh ordered the death of me. If I failed at that moment in doing what is to liberate the people, precisely, I am going to fail again. And besides, I have already lived in this desert for many years. I already know it, I know where each bramble is, each stone, everything. Where there is a little grass, I already know this environment too.

So I'm not going to put myself at this stage of my life to do something for myself." That's me imagining Moses there pondering after that call. From verse 10 onwards there follows a very interesting conversation between God and Moses. This conversation shows us that our own humanity is the biggest obstacle to fulfilling God's call on our lives. Sometimes we do not need help, in this case, we ourselves are more than enough, more than capable of canceling the call of God at the very beginning of the call.

Let's read in God's words of affirmation after Moses flatly declares himself disqualified when he tells him “Me? I am not. How am I going to be the one to go to Egypt? In verse 12, look at such beautiful words, he says -God tells Moses-: 'Come because I will be with you' and I repeat it 'Come because I will be with you'. In other words, God was telling Moses to “stop casting your eyes on yourself. You are my instrument, put your eyes on me. Go calm because in this company I go with you. I am responsible. You are not alone".

These words of the Lord "Come because I will be with you" are like refreshing water for any son or daughter of God who wants to do his will. Because we don't have to worry, because when that anxiety of "How am I going to do this?" We know that He has already said 'Come because I will be with you'. I remember something silly that I thought when once we were already there, when I saw that the women's retreat was going to be an annual event, about two had already passed.

I remember that one day I was kind of trembling as if saying “this has to be done every year. But I'm not creative enough to come up with a different idea every year for this retreat.” It's laughable, like what God had I believed in? If He had called me to do something, I don't have to worry about it coming from me, I have to work on developing that relationship with Him so that I can receive His guidance and wisdom to do what He has called me to do.

So these are things that we sometimes think of in such a ridiculous and small way. And that happens to all of us, especially at the beginning of the walk and in stages when we already see that God is expanding us, he is taking us out of a comfortable zone to a zone – let's say – of risk. It is there that we tremble. But God has the answer for everything and He will train us. When those fears come, when discouragements come and the difficulties that will certainly come when we respond to God's call.

Look, it may be that we are still in the center of the exact will of the Lord and even there we are going to have discouragement, difficulties and fears. Yes or yes, right, yes, what is it? We have all experienced it. But this truth that He is with me serves as both an anchor and a compass for us to continue on that path that He has determined for us to follow and comforts our soul. Because we know that, 'look, I don't have to worry that it comes out of me'. I have to be diligent and I have to keep learning.

But I don't have to worry that the power to do what God has commanded me to do comes from me because it comes from God. God is the only true source of the effectiveness of the Son of God. There is nothing else. Outside of Him we can do nothing. It is very possible that in our own strength we do things that can turn out well and are even good, but it will not be God's best. Rather, I believe that each one of us wants the best of God.

It is easy for us to get involved when we are like this in the work of the Lord, that we get so involved in what we do for God that we forget that the most important thing is what we are in Him. There is a great difference. One can be, be eager to do, dedicate 24 hours a day to the ministry, to the service of the Lord. But that's not necessarily what He wants. What He wants is our obedience. We have to be obedient. The more I am in the ways of the Lord, the more that principle counts and becomes real to me.

That the most important thing for God is not what we do, but rather the obedient heart with which we do it. In the same way that when you have a need and you need something at the moment, what is it that pleases you? That it be fulfilled at the moment, not after when the person determines that it is the time. It has to be at the time you need. We also have to do, obedience is the most important thing. Obedience, obedience, obedience.

That is something that I repeat myself continuously. Because He cannot support what He has not commanded and if we are out of time it cannot be either. Many people have started good endeavors again, but have done so outside of God's timing. And there are many people who have correctly discerned the area in which God wants them to serve but have been ahead of God's time and have therefore failed. Something similar happened to Moses. I believe that it is very possible - and I believe that the Word confirms it - that from a young age he had the desire to free his people, right? Because he was raised as a prince in Egypt but he had a time when he drank milk from a mother who believed in Jehovah and surely he did not waste any time to tell him about who he was, that he was part of God's people. That he had a mission in his life, that is why he had been rescued from the waters, that he should be careful in that environment where he was going to enter.

And of course, a little child may not understand the complexity of what her father wants to teach her, but I believe that she spoke to the spirit. That mother spoke to the spirit of Moses so that it would stay there. And I think that this is a great lesson for parents that we should not waste any time. Take advantage of every moment that we have our children under our guardianship to impart to them that presence of God, that search for God, that identity of who he or she is in God.

Time flies by and sometimes you think “well I still have time to teach these lessons to my children”, but time goes by so fast. Your child may be under your guardianship for 17, 18, 19, 20, 25 years, perhaps not more, so we have to take advantage of those times from childhood. Since a child is little, go imparting that to him. Although we believe that your mind does not understand, I believe that your spirit may be receptive. Because it is an act of faith.

So that was an aside to encourage them to -precisely that- take advantage of each day to record that in our children. She spoke to him about the covenant, surely she spoke to him about God's covenant with his people, with Abraham, with Isaac, with Jacob, and she spoke to him about his identity as part of that people. So I think that was there. He got into the spirit of Moses and there came a day when he wanted to do something about it. But what happened? He did it out of time. He did it in the flesh.

He went, he saw that there was an Egyptian who was mistreating a Hebrew and in his own cause, in the flesh he decided to kill him and he thought that this would perhaps bring him the pleasure of the Hebrew people. But it was the opposite, we see that it did not work. But it's good that God is the God of multiple opportunities. He did not dismiss Moses at that time for his disobedience and haughtiness. Neither does it reject you nor does it reject me. It doesn't matter what experiences or what sins or failures there have been in our lives.

There is a call, there is definitely a call from God on the life of each one of you. And He has all the resources to restore us to His Glory. One of the things we continually do is condemn ourselves, disqualify ourselves from God's work out of shame and feeling unworthy. But Psalm 40, verse 2 tells each one of us: "And he brought me up out of the pit of despair, out of the miry mire, he set my feet on the rock, and straightened my steps."

So there we see that we do not stay in the miry mud. And I believe that each one of us has an experience of the miry mud. We have a passage in some area because before we did not have the light of Christ and now we do. Each one of you not only has natural talents, you have a vocation, a temperament, a unique personality, some gifts that God has deposited in each one of you, but you have this experience of miry mud 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 unite the instrument of God with the need. So even that which perhaps embarrasses you, even that which you would like to forget when we submit it to the Lord with joy asking Him to do the work, still that can serve for good and can be used for His Glory. God does not waste anything, He does not waste anything.

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

And we have two options to do with this when we see what is within us that opposes God's call. We have two options. When God calls us we can remain small and comfortable where we are. That is one of the options. The other option is: we can accept the challenge to grow. So which one do you want? No one wants to stunt their growth in any area. So those are the two options. Or we stay comfortable and from there we don't go, dwarfs without growing; o We accept the challenge to grow.

And if we are already serving and there are difficulties in the ministry – which are going to come – we also have two options: we can stay dwarfed [again] and run away, leave that: 'this is very difficult, this is not for me'; or we can submit to God's growth process in our areas of need. Because it is precisely when God calls us and we work with other people, that is not easy. Working with people is difficult, yes or no? right yes? It is difficult, it brings its complications.

But it is not impossible and that is where one has to say: “Okay. The fire is rising, the candle is hotter, what do I do? Shall I go, leave all this? This is very difficult, God did not call me to this or I stay and see what God wants to do with my life and I make changes so that God's call is fulfilled. Moses' insecurities and fears came to the surface just like they do to us. And they are recorded for our benefit in Exodus chapters 3 and 4.

It is a conversation that I find fascinating. In chapter 3 verse 13 it says: ‘Moses said to God [hypothetically he speaks 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 your name? What shall I answer them?" This question projects feelings with which we can all identify and it is the emotion or feeling of pride.

Because it may be that you are apparently a humble, simple person, but we all have pride, right? Somewhere we get out. Maybe in many situations it doesn't come out, but there are some in which it comes out no matter how humble we are. Because that happened to Moses. Out of pride many times we want to have all the details in order, to know all the answers, we want to avoid making any mistake, not to be embarrassed in front of others. And as long as we protect ourselves from rejection.

We all hate being rejected, it is something that is difficult for human beings. Nobody likes rejection and some of us are more sensitive than others about it, but out of pride we don't want to be rejected. We are intimidated by what others think. Many people have stopped doing things that God has commanded because they are intimidated, because they are frozen by what others may believe; Or do you think that if it looks bad, what will happen? Sometimes we give more weight to the opinion of others about us than to obey God.

That happens to us very often. Because? Because we have pride in our hearts. And look at Moses' response. He says: "I am who I am." And he said: "Thus you shall say to the children of Israel: 'I am sent to you.' There God identifies with his divine name. In that name is included the absolute and eternal existence of God, his attributes and his character; in that "I am". And he repeats to Moses that He is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

In addition, in that same passage – a little later – he gives him consolation so that he can bring a message of consolation and liberation to the children of Israel. And also, as if that were not enough, since Moses is afraid that he is going to get there and they are going to close the door in his face, he also assures him that the elders of Israel are going to receive him, they are going to listen to him and they will know that it was God who sent him. So he gives him those words of encouragement: 'Don't worry, Moises. I tell you since they are going to listen to you.

'And I am also going to do great wonders before Pharaoh and not only that, but the people of Israel, when they leave Egypt, are going to plunder Egypt in a very easy way so that they are going to take wealth with them.' So God tells him many things that should have already calmed the discomfort or restlessness that Moses has before the call. In Exodus 4:1 Moses continues his campaign of resistance to the call.

Then Moses responded by saying: “Behold, they will not believe me or listen to my voice, for they will say, ‘The Lord has not appeared to you. Poor thing, keep saying the same thing: they won't believe me. God tells him 'they will believe you, they will receive you, they will listen to you' and he says 'No, no. I am going to appear there and they are going to tell me 'the Lord has not appeared to you'. And how interesting is the answer that God gives to the insistent Moses. In that case God says to him: 'What is it that you have in your hand?' And Moses answered him 'a rod'.

And at that moment God proceeded to turn the rod into a snake and again turned it into a rod and also gave him two more signs so that the people of Israel and Pharaoh would know that he had been sent by God. At this point in the conversation, Moisés already knows that the cause is lost. You have to lose. He knows that he has to hit a home-round with God in terms of a formidable excuse that will take Him out of the race and make God finally understand that he is not the right man, that God has taken the wrong direction.

And he arrived there in the desert of Maridan when in reality that was not where He had to arrive. He had to go to another place to look for another person. And look at what he tells him, what Moses comes up with. In chapter 4 verse 10: ‘Then Moses said to Jehovah: “Alas, Lord! I have never been a man of easy words. Neither before nor since you spoke to your servant, because I am slow to speak and dull of tongue. I think many of us can identify with that, right?

When we have an opportunity where we are commanded: 'Look, you can pray for such a thing in public, you can bring a 5-minute meditation, you can do this, that'. 'You can lead this group, you can open your house for a cell.' Immediately what comes to us alas! But I'm not very good in that area. But it's interesting that Moses is one of his areas, too, of seeming weakness. By now Moses has witnessed compelling proofs of God's power and he tells God – he has seen so many wonders.

He has already seen the rod become a snake, the snake once again become a rod, and other things. He has seen the bush that burned and was not consumed. He's been talking to the God of the Universe but that hasn't inspired him enough and look at the excuse he gives him: 'I don't have the speaking skills that You need, God.' 'It's not for me'. 'I think you already know, we have already talked enough, and you must understand that I am not the one you are looking for'.

And God gives him an answer that goes straight to the target of Moses' foolishness, he says in verse 11: 'Who gave man a mouth or who made the world and the deaf, the seeing and the blind? Am I not Jehovah? Now then, go and I will be with your mouth and I will teach you what you have to speak. In other words: “Moisés, the excuse is very good but see, you're going to Egypt. You go there. You are going to Egypt. You are the one that I have indicated for that.

The God of the Universe has the resources to train 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 qualified, but he trains the called. Again: God does not call the qualified, but he trains the called. That's for you and me. He does not issue a call to push us to failure. God is not crazy. He's not going to do that to us. He is not going to tell us: "You can, go, jump into the water" and then he is going to let us sink and drown. He's not going to do that because He's a God of love.

Our part is to believe and move in faith. And we thought then that everything would stay there. But Moses insisted on keeping his gaze on himself, on his limitations instead of transferring it to the Almighty. And we see verse 13 that Moses says to him: “Oh, Lord! [Again: oh, Lord!] Send, I beg you, by means of whom you must send”. Again, it's not me, you were wrong. Look for the other, whom you have to send.

And finally this angered God. But even so, God did not discard Moses, showing him his eternal attributes of patience and mercy. God picked up again because he knew that he was his answer to the need of his people. Despite this fragile beginning of Moses, he grew in faith. In your faith. And in fact, I encourage you – there is obviously very little that we can share about the life of Moses at this time – to read it completely from beginning to end. It is a wonderful story where there are so many lessons for our personal life, for our ministerial life, leadership.

For many areas of our life. So I encourage you to continue reading and understanding more about God's process, God's call on the life of Moses and how God used him. So despite this very fragile, humble beginning of Moses there in the desert, he grew in faith. And how did this happen? He was walking side by side with God, discarding his human mentality, his purely natural mentality.

He gradually discarded himself and acquired a supernatural mentality about the power of God, about what the call is, about what it is to grow in the Lord. He decided to embrace God's call for his life with all the privileges and joys as well as his responsibilities and difficulties and that is why we see in chapter 11 of Hebrews that it is the chapter of the heroes of faith. Moses is included. If we go there, chapter 11 of Hebrews in verses 24 onwards says: 'By faith, Moses, 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 temporal delights. of sin.

Taking the reproach of Christ for greater riches than the treasures of the Egyptians because he had his eyes set on the reward. And from then on, another part of the passage says other things about what Moses was able to achieve precisely because he had put his faith in God to work. And I want to conclude with a very interesting verse that is found [if the musicians can come in, please] in Exodus 4:20 and that takes place when Moses has already convinced himself that it is God who has called him and he is on his way to Egypt.

Then the verse says, Exodus 4:20: "So Moses took his wife and children and put them on a donkey and returned to the land of Egypt." And look at this part of the verse: "Moses also took the rod of God in his hand." And the rod, until that moment had been the symbol of his life and his occupation for 40 years. It was a possession, a treasure of Moses. But now at this moment, when we get to that verse, there has already been a spiritual transformation in Moses. He is already thinking differently.

Now he has relinquished the rod to God and it is no longer the rod of Moses. Until before, for 40 years it was the rod of Moses, that is my rod. It is a symbol of my life. Now it is no longer the rod of Moses but the rod of God. And I think that we also have, each one of us could extend the symbolism that has a rod. And what does your rod symbolize? Your rod can be your occupation, your talents, your financial resources, your possessions, your job, your family. In other words, everything that represents you. That's what your rod is.

And I believe that the Lord invites us today to do the same thing that Moses did: to follow his example, to give him our personal staff with all that that may imply. And do you know why? Because He knows that you are his answer to a need. That is what I want you to leave with on this day. God knows, He needs the delivery of your heart, of your rod because He knows that you are the answer to a need. He already united them both.

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

If God has called you to open your home for others to be healed by your counsel, do that too. In other words, do not belittle or underestimate. And the other thing is that the calls start out small – we obviously can't cover the life of Moses right now, but he was taking those little steps of faith. The first step was to look at the bush and search; after that listen to God and interact with Him; then go to his father-in-law Jethro and tell him 'I'm leaving here. I'm coming back, I'm going to visit my family in Egypt. And he took his family with him.

Along the way God followed the transformation in the heart of Moses. That is what He does, what God expects of us is that our hearts be sensitive to Him; that we want to do his will; that we look at the need around us and say “that need is for me to fill because God has sent me to do it”. So don't belittle what seems small. Many great modern heroes of the faith got their start cleaning toilets.

But they did it because they knew that this is what God had called them to do at that moment: to clean the bathrooms as shiny as possible, the cleanest bathroom on Earth. And from there God went, he takes them out and calls them. God is changing our calling as our life progresses in Him. So embrace your calling. Ask God, have that conversation with God: What is it that You want me to do, Lord?

But always remembering that the most important thing is what we are and not what we do. But in this way, at the same time, God glorifies and is pleased with our offering of service to Him. So this morning we are going to close by praying the delivery of the rod. Imagine that you have your wand that represents who you are. Well, let's get up. Good Christians stand up to make statements. Imagine that you have your rod in your hand and we are going to give it to the Lord. We are going to ask the Lord that He use it for his honor and glory.

Lord, at this moment and this morning, on this day, Lord, we present before you our rod, Lord, which represents what we are, what we do, our occupation, our resources and even our shortcomings, our limitations and our weaknesses, Mister. And sometimes a past that has been difficult, Lord. Lord, it doesn't matter what situation we are in right now, Lord. Be it in a light situation and of tranquility and happiness or be it in a desert in our lives, Lord.

We present to you that rod that represents what we have already told you. Sir, we already want to renounce that the rod is ours. It is not my rod, Lord, it is no longer mine. It no longer has my name, it already has your name. I ask you, Lord, that You sanctify my rod, that you use it for your work and your glory, Lord. Lord take my rod to places I never thought. Lord use me for your glory. Lord, I before you, Lord, with an open heart and ready for You to work in me, take me to the places that You want, Lord.

Lord allow me to see the need around me and teach me to guide my steps to where You want me to take it, Lord, to take 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 services be services of joy and total dedication. We love you, Lord. On this day I give you who I am wishing you use me.

Lord, not so that my name may be magnified, but so that yours may be magnified, Lord, in this time. Father, in this time when we expect a great harvest due to the revival that is coming soon, Lord, I ask you, Lord, that in this church there are not two or three people doing your work and recharging themselves. Rather, hundreds and even thousands of people rise up in this place willing to do your work whose rod has your name, Lord.

May that be, Lord, the truth in our church. The reality, Lord, of this community: to be used greatly by you. Not looking at what the other does, the one next to me, but what I do and what You have called me and being faithful in what You put each one of us, Lord. Working as a team, sir. A well-arranged work team, Lord, in perfect unity before you, Lord. Thanks, Dad.

Lord, raise up this people, Lord, for your work and your glory, Lord, and use us, Lord, effectively, one hundred percent, Lord. In this time and until You come, Lord. Thanks, Dad. In the name of Jesus, amen.