Sermon-Based Small Group Leader’s Discussion Guide
Excuses, Excuses: God’s Calling and the Kingdom of God
Rich Nathan
February 1-2, 2014
Vineyard Core Series
Exodus 3 and 4
Interacting with the Sermon
Synopsis of the Sermon
When we give excuses we're saying 'Here are the reasons why I'm not going to do what you want me to do'. Police officers hear the funniest excuses for why people were speeding, such as 'I wanted to get to McDonalds before the breakfast menu ended'.
We make excuses for being unable to serve in the church. Pastor Rich had church staff send him 167 excuses they'd heard from people for not serving or joining a small group. For example, 'I’m lazy. Once I work or do what I want to do during the day, I just don’t want to go back out'.
When God called Moses (Exodus 3-4), Moses made excuses too. Here's what we can learn from that encounter:
The first call is a call to God. 'God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!”' (Ex 3:4). God's primary call is not reserved for full-time paid ministry, for the special Christians who are going to be pastors or missionaries. It's not even about figuring out which ministry He wants you to do. Your first call is to a relationship with God. The Reformation returned to this truth after there had been a split between 'a sacred' and 'a secular life', the special people called into the priesthood and the rest left to do secular work. The Reformers affirmed that God calls all of us to faithfulness in whatever work or vocation we have. In fact, for each person God will have multiple 'callings', roles in which he wants us to be faithful, like being a husband or an employee.
Notice when and how God calls. God calls to Moses from a bush! He makes a bush His Mount Sinai, and He can call us whenever He wants, in whatever activity we're doing. But key to the how, is that He wants us to turn aside and pay attention. The biggest excuse our pastors have heard for not serving is 'I'm too busy'. Sometimes we are too busy to listen to what God is calling us to.
The second call is a call to a task. God calls Moses to go to Pharaoh and to bring the Israelites out of Egypt (3:10). There isn't a dynamic of discussion here, 'choose your favourite option'(!), but of hearing and obeying.
But Moses makes excuses, and so do we:
Excuse (1) is 'I'm not qualified'. Moses says, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh?' (3:11). In fact after busyness, our next most common excuse is 'I'm damaged goods'. I've got issues. I'm divorced. I'm not qualified. But the people who God calls are all damaged goods – Abraham, Jacob, Rahab, Jonah, John Mark in the New Testament.
...God says to Moses: 'I will be with you'. This is God’s answer for every task he calls you to. Jesus sends us into the world and says 'I will be with you always, to the very end of the age' (Matt 28:20)
Excuse 2) 'I don't have all the answers'. Moses says, 'Suppose they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?” (Ex 3:13).
...God says to Moses: 'I AM WHO I AM'. I am here, I am active, I am personally involved.
Excuse 3): 'I'm not gifted' – Moses says, 'I've never been eloquent' (Ex 4:10)
...God says to Moses: 'I will help you speak and will teach you what to say'
Excuse 4) 'I don't want to' – Moses says, 'Please send someone else' (Ex 4:13)
...But instead of 'I can't, therefore I won't'; God wants this response from us:
'I can't, but He can, therefore I will'
In 5 minutes or less, briefly give a synopsis of this week’s sermon. What insight, principle, or observation from this weekend’s message did you find to be most helpful, eye-opening, or troubling? Explain.
Getting the Conversation Started
These questions can be used as ice-breakers in the beginning OR interwoven between the questions below to draw the group into the discussion.
•Which times in your life do you find yourself making excuses?
•Have you ever sensed God calling you to a task and found an excuse to not respond?
•Which one of Moses' four excuses can you relate to most?
1) 'I'm not qualified' (or I've disqualified myself)
2) 'I don't have all the answers'
3) 'I'm not gifted'
4) 'I don't want to'
Scripture Study
CONTEXT
Paul is writing to the church in Corinth in a period when his own calling as a servant and apostle is under pressure. His calling's under pressure from the outside, from intense physical persecution (6:4-5; 11:23-27), from false teachers in Corinth trying to undermine his authority (11:4-6), and from the church attacking him for being 'weak' and bad at public speaking (10:10). He's also under pressure from his own inner anxieties about the job he'd been called to do and the weight of caring for the churches (1:8; 2:4; 11:28-29). And here, he reveals, he's under pressure from a mysterious 'thorn in my flesh'. (Bear in mind the parallels with Gethsemane, where Jesus, called to a task by God, pleads three times for a piercing weight to be lifted, and yet comes to learn obedience and the power of God. Mark 14:32-41)
Read: 2 Corinthians 12:7-10
7...Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh,a messenger of Satan,to torment me.8Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me.9But he said to me,“My graceis sufficient for you, for my poweris made perfect in weakness.”Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.10That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delightin weaknesses, in insults, in hardships,in persecutions,in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
1. What purpose did Paul's 'thorn in the flesh' accomplish?
2. How did God answer Paul's prayer to 'take it away'?
3. What does Paul come to learn from this about weakness and the work God calls us to?
- What do you think needs to happen between someone and God for them to go from being desperate about their weaknesses to being delighted in them?
CONNECTION WITH THE SERMON
1. Can you recall a time when God made it clear to you that his power was made perfect in weakness?
2. Do you have a 'thorn' in your life which has been stopping you from responding to God's call? Or a thorn that’s been blocking you from serving God in a particular area of your life? Or from taking on a role in His church?
- Think of a person in the church who has obvious weaknesses and yet whom God is using powerfully. What can we learn from them about God's calling and our response?
Ministry Application
Below you’ll see some options for ministry time with your group. We always encourage you to reserve time in your group to pray for one another and wait on the Holy Spirit.
•Have a time of listening and surrender to God, being open to Him to speak His calling into our lives. Start by reading Psalm 25:1-5, followed by a time of waiting on God's Spirit. Before you start you might want to remind people of Rich's point that God's primary calling is into close relationship with Him, and then secondly to the particular tasks He has for us.
•Write down on a sheet of paper the 'thorn in your flesh' that you want to pray about. Split into pairs, and without needing to share what it is, get prayer over this 'thorn'; for God to remove it, or even for God to use it, whichever He wants. Ask God to begin moving us from a place of desperation to a place of delighting in Jesus' power.
•Is there an area of ministry or faithfulness that you sense God is calling you to, but you've been making excuses about, that you feel comfortable to share with the group, and get specific prayer for?