Exodus 3:7-10
Last week I made one big blunder, by forgetting something. As I was talking
about the importance of caring, I should have reminded you about the person
whose name you wrote down on the one, one, one prayer card. I should have
pointed out that we should pray for God to help us see ways of caring for the
person for whom we are praying. But you’re all so smart, maybe you made that
application on your own. Still, I wish I had mentioned it then. Anyway, it’s
important to mention it again today because today we are talking about
listening, and listening is one of the best ways we have of finding out how to
care for people.
We are in the middle of a series about sharing our faith, in other words evangelism. “Sharing our faith” is a good description of evangelism because sharing is something we can do, both with and without words. If you’re caring for people, listening to them to find out what they need and then sharing what you have to meet that need, you are sharing your faith because you are sharing yourself.
The over view for this series is: PRAY, CARE, LISTEN, SHARE, OFFER and BRING. We have already focused on the fact that God wants to use us in the work of evangelism and that as we obey and preach or share the gospel we will see unsaved people come to life in Christ, as if they are being raised from the dead. That refers back to the passage in Ezekiel. But we also see it right here when God is calling Moses. We have insisted that we must begin with prayer, and last week we talked about caring. And so, in order to know how to care for them, we have to listen.
As we read in our text today, even God listened! In Exodus 3:7 God said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering.” He was speaking to Moses, out of the burning bush. When we tell this story we usually focus on the principle that God will enlist human partners to get the work done. Poor Moses. He didn’t want to go. But God was pretty insistent.
But what I am looking at today is: God listens. Another example is a little further on in the story. Moses was being so stubborn. He protested 5 times against having to obey God’s command to go! And he finally ended up saying, “Lord, please! Send anyone else.” Then the Lord became angry with Moses. But he was listening. He took Moses’ fears into account and said, “All right. What about your brother, Aaron the Levite?”
Now it’s not like God was surprised by Moses behavior. Aaron was already on his way to meet Moses even before Moses stopped to talk to the burning bush! Moms and dads, have you ever listened to your kids and adjusted your plans for them? God did that for Moses to show his compassion.
I have another example of God listening, in the story in Mark 4:35-41, where Jesus calms the storm. We read there, “That day, when evening came, he [Jesus] said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side.” Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”
He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?” They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”
Jesus listened when his disciples asked him, “Don’t you care?” And Jesus responded by caring for his disciples. He listened, and then provided for them. He calmed the winds and the waves. Then he used it as an object lesson too. He let them see just how willing and able he was to care about them.
Another story of Jesus listening is the story of Mary and Martha. I bring it up here because Martha asked a question a lot like the disciples did in the boat at sea. Listen to Luke 10:38-42. “As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”
(See? There it is again, “Don’t you care?” Well of course he cares. And just like the disciples felt like were going to drown at sea, Martha felt like she was drowning in all the work she thought she had to do. And Jesus listened. Then,)
“Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”
In this case, Martha did not get what she wanted. Instead, Jesus spoke to her about her deeper need for relationship with him rather than doing things for him. That also makes this true historical event in their lives a parable about the true way of salvation.
Another way that God listens is by asking questions. He asks good, deep questions. The very first question God ever asked was uttered in the Garden of Eden, not long after their fatal sin. Adam and Eve hid from God. God showed up and asked, “Where are you?”
Now of course, God didn’t really have to ask about their physical location. He already knew. God didn’t even have to ask about their spiritual distance from him. He knew they had died to him. But it just goes to show that asking questions and listening to the answers is an important key to doing effective ministry. God’s questions express his care.
As soon as they ran and hid from him he was already missing them, as if they had gone on a long journey and had been away a long time. “Where are you? What happened that made you run away? I miss you!” God was inviting them to face the truth about themselves and confess their sin, so they could be forgiven.
Adam and Eve were also like lost sheep. God, the Good Shepherd acted out his love by going to look for them, and since they could talk, he asked them, “Where are you?” He doesn’t want to play the game of hide and seek. He asked them to tell him what is going on. He invited their confession. But they were already spiritually dead and couldn’t respond with truth. Though they talked to God, they didn’t really confess their own sin, just someone else’s. You know what happened. Adam blamed Eve. Eve blamed the snake. But we’re not going to get into that sermon today.
Here’s another example of Jesus asking a good question. John 5:2-8, “Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”
What a penetrating question. Really? Isn’t the answer an obvious “yes”? But maybe not. If he had been sick for 38 years maybe he’d gotten used to it. If he got well, he’d have to go to work and earn a living. As an invalid, people could take pity on him. He wouldn’t get rich, but it was sort of an easy life. All he did was sit by the pool all day. That’s what I like to do on vacation.
At any rate, the man had an answer. “Sir, I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”
I wonder if the man’s answer was an excuse, or an invitation to Jesus to hang around and help him out. I wonder about how he got to the pool each day. Jesus must have perceived that the man really did want to be healed. He told him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” He asked a question and got involved in the man’s life.
Then there was the time at the foot of the mount of transfiguration. Mark 9 tells us about a demon possessed boy, whose father appealed to Jesus. Jesus asked the boy’s father, “How long has he been like this?” Again, Jesus engaged in conversation with a question. It shows sympathy for the man and his son. And it gave the man an opportunity to express his faith in Jesus. “From childhood,” he answered. “It has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him. But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.”
“‘If you can?” said Jesus.
And that’s another question. God is so sensitive to not commandeer the scene with his knowledge. He could have said things like, “I know why you’re here and I know what’s wrong with the boy and how long he has been afflicted. I’m here to help. But you don’t have enough faith yet. You only think I might be able to help. You need more confidence in me! Everything is possible for one who believes.”
To me, if Jesus had handled the situation that way, it doesn’t sound very loving. It sounds like he is looking down his nose at him and shaming him for not knowing better. But God is really very loving. We see it in how he deals with this situation. And he models for us the value of questions, and how the answers we get enable us to respond with grace and compassion and to speak the truth in love. And it stimulated a new request for a different kind of help. The father needed a small miracle in his own heart too. Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”
God models good ministry. If he asks questions of the people he cares about, we ought to ask questions. And even if he doesn’t ask questions, he is always listening.
So, let’s get practical. Think of that person you’re praying for every day. That name on your one, one, one card. What do you know about them? What might you still need to find out? For example, if you know they’re Catholic, but you don’t know if they understand that salvation is by faith in Jesus alone, what can you ask them? One possibility is, “What are your thoughts about Jesus?” Then listen for how they talk about Jesus.
That could lead to further questions you come up with on your own to clarify the nature of their faith in Jesus. You don’t have to tell them what they should believe. Right now, you’re just listening. But you can explain your position if they ask you what you about your faith position. And this is generally true, if you have a good friendly relationship with the person, and you have been a good listener, eventually they will get around to asking you about your faith. Generally, people do enjoy comparing different viewpoints.
If you know they don’t go to church, so you wonder if they’re really saved, maybe you can ask an interesting question like, “Why do you think anybody goes to church?” Here’s an insight you need to be aware of. Most of the younger generation are still very interested in spiritual things. But they’re not interested in Christians, Christianity or the Church. In their minds, those words are associated with hypocrisy, shallowness, bigotry, and even hate. They can point to the crusades in Europe, the slavery and segregation in the USA. More recently, they think we’re homophobes.
Here’s an extreme example of what I mean. The Native American population has been very resistant to the gospel for a long time. The White people broke their promises on land treaties, tricked them and swindled them out of property, forced them onto reservations, forced them into English schools and Western European clothes, enslaved them, tortured them and even killed them. So how could they possibly believe that the white man’s God loved them?
I pulled some information from a Baptist website called Christian Headlines. It says there, “In the eyes of many [Native Americans], Christianity has been seen as the white man's religion, says Huron Claus, himself a Native American. "As a result, we've had the gospel for 500 years, yet less than 8 percent of our Native people are believers in the Lord." [i]
That kind of social dynamic just adds to the human natural resistance to the gospel. Modern young people, often called millennials, have their own set of cultural circumstances and history that sets up a bias against the established church. So, we need new strategies. We can’t just assume that people need convincing of the truth of the gospel. Instead we need to exhibit a Christian character of caring and compassion. One of the easiest ways to do that is to listen to their stories. Of course, you can’t fake it either. You do have to genuinely love people so that you want to listen. The greatest impact you can make on another person’s life is not by telling them how much you know, but by showing them how much you care.
Through good listening and wise questions, we will eventually understand how to love them in ways that they can appreciate. Once they feel that we respect them, we will earn their respect and gain a hearing to tell our own stories, stories about how a relationship with Jesus makes life better, brings hope and joy and meaning. Everyone is desperate to live a life that has meaning and makes a difference. We want to be significant. They want to be significant. Jesus makes everyone significant. Jesus has come to seek and to save the lost, even the least of these becomes important in Christ.
Now back to Moses, but a bit updated to apply to our situation. We’ll have to skip the burning bush. But we have the Bible full of truth that can cause our hearts to burn within us. To us the Lord says, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people all over the world. But you can concentrate on Lake City. You can even narrow it down further to people you know personally, like the one you are praying for on your one, one, one card.
I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers. They are slaves to sin that drives them to drunkenness and addiction, and misery and loneliness and emptiness and poverty and discord, but also to workaholism, and greed and hoarding riches or seeking significance in fame or accomplishments only to come up empty. Some have fallen into the ditches of despair. Others have climbed the ladder of success and found nothing there at the top. I am concerned about their suffering.
So, I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the satan and to bring them up out of worldly existence into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey, a spiritual life in relationship with their Savior, and yours, Jesus Christ. And now the cry of all my lost ones has reached me, and I have seen the way the demons are oppressing them. So now, go. I am sending you to the people to love them and listen to them and help them find their way to me. You are not sales people, telling them what they need. You are fellow travelers, looking for a chance to show them what you have found in me.”
Listen here: https://www.lcepc.org/blogger
We are in the middle of a series about sharing our faith, in other words evangelism. “Sharing our faith” is a good description of evangelism because sharing is something we can do, both with and without words. If you’re caring for people, listening to them to find out what they need and then sharing what you have to meet that need, you are sharing your faith because you are sharing yourself.
The over view for this series is: PRAY, CARE, LISTEN, SHARE, OFFER and BRING. We have already focused on the fact that God wants to use us in the work of evangelism and that as we obey and preach or share the gospel we will see unsaved people come to life in Christ, as if they are being raised from the dead. That refers back to the passage in Ezekiel. But we also see it right here when God is calling Moses. We have insisted that we must begin with prayer, and last week we talked about caring. And so, in order to know how to care for them, we have to listen.
As we read in our text today, even God listened! In Exodus 3:7 God said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering.” He was speaking to Moses, out of the burning bush. When we tell this story we usually focus on the principle that God will enlist human partners to get the work done. Poor Moses. He didn’t want to go. But God was pretty insistent.
But what I am looking at today is: God listens. Another example is a little further on in the story. Moses was being so stubborn. He protested 5 times against having to obey God’s command to go! And he finally ended up saying, “Lord, please! Send anyone else.” Then the Lord became angry with Moses. But he was listening. He took Moses’ fears into account and said, “All right. What about your brother, Aaron the Levite?”
Now it’s not like God was surprised by Moses behavior. Aaron was already on his way to meet Moses even before Moses stopped to talk to the burning bush! Moms and dads, have you ever listened to your kids and adjusted your plans for them? God did that for Moses to show his compassion.
I have another example of God listening, in the story in Mark 4:35-41, where Jesus calms the storm. We read there, “That day, when evening came, he [Jesus] said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side.” Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”
He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?” They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”
Jesus listened when his disciples asked him, “Don’t you care?” And Jesus responded by caring for his disciples. He listened, and then provided for them. He calmed the winds and the waves. Then he used it as an object lesson too. He let them see just how willing and able he was to care about them.
Another story of Jesus listening is the story of Mary and Martha. I bring it up here because Martha asked a question a lot like the disciples did in the boat at sea. Listen to Luke 10:38-42. “As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”
(See? There it is again, “Don’t you care?” Well of course he cares. And just like the disciples felt like were going to drown at sea, Martha felt like she was drowning in all the work she thought she had to do. And Jesus listened. Then,)
“Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”
In this case, Martha did not get what she wanted. Instead, Jesus spoke to her about her deeper need for relationship with him rather than doing things for him. That also makes this true historical event in their lives a parable about the true way of salvation.
Another way that God listens is by asking questions. He asks good, deep questions. The very first question God ever asked was uttered in the Garden of Eden, not long after their fatal sin. Adam and Eve hid from God. God showed up and asked, “Where are you?”
Now of course, God didn’t really have to ask about their physical location. He already knew. God didn’t even have to ask about their spiritual distance from him. He knew they had died to him. But it just goes to show that asking questions and listening to the answers is an important key to doing effective ministry. God’s questions express his care.
As soon as they ran and hid from him he was already missing them, as if they had gone on a long journey and had been away a long time. “Where are you? What happened that made you run away? I miss you!” God was inviting them to face the truth about themselves and confess their sin, so they could be forgiven.
Adam and Eve were also like lost sheep. God, the Good Shepherd acted out his love by going to look for them, and since they could talk, he asked them, “Where are you?” He doesn’t want to play the game of hide and seek. He asked them to tell him what is going on. He invited their confession. But they were already spiritually dead and couldn’t respond with truth. Though they talked to God, they didn’t really confess their own sin, just someone else’s. You know what happened. Adam blamed Eve. Eve blamed the snake. But we’re not going to get into that sermon today.
Here’s another example of Jesus asking a good question. John 5:2-8, “Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”
What a penetrating question. Really? Isn’t the answer an obvious “yes”? But maybe not. If he had been sick for 38 years maybe he’d gotten used to it. If he got well, he’d have to go to work and earn a living. As an invalid, people could take pity on him. He wouldn’t get rich, but it was sort of an easy life. All he did was sit by the pool all day. That’s what I like to do on vacation.
At any rate, the man had an answer. “Sir, I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”
I wonder if the man’s answer was an excuse, or an invitation to Jesus to hang around and help him out. I wonder about how he got to the pool each day. Jesus must have perceived that the man really did want to be healed. He told him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” He asked a question and got involved in the man’s life.
Then there was the time at the foot of the mount of transfiguration. Mark 9 tells us about a demon possessed boy, whose father appealed to Jesus. Jesus asked the boy’s father, “How long has he been like this?” Again, Jesus engaged in conversation with a question. It shows sympathy for the man and his son. And it gave the man an opportunity to express his faith in Jesus. “From childhood,” he answered. “It has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him. But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.”
“‘If you can?” said Jesus.
And that’s another question. God is so sensitive to not commandeer the scene with his knowledge. He could have said things like, “I know why you’re here and I know what’s wrong with the boy and how long he has been afflicted. I’m here to help. But you don’t have enough faith yet. You only think I might be able to help. You need more confidence in me! Everything is possible for one who believes.”
To me, if Jesus had handled the situation that way, it doesn’t sound very loving. It sounds like he is looking down his nose at him and shaming him for not knowing better. But God is really very loving. We see it in how he deals with this situation. And he models for us the value of questions, and how the answers we get enable us to respond with grace and compassion and to speak the truth in love. And it stimulated a new request for a different kind of help. The father needed a small miracle in his own heart too. Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”
God models good ministry. If he asks questions of the people he cares about, we ought to ask questions. And even if he doesn’t ask questions, he is always listening.
So, let’s get practical. Think of that person you’re praying for every day. That name on your one, one, one card. What do you know about them? What might you still need to find out? For example, if you know they’re Catholic, but you don’t know if they understand that salvation is by faith in Jesus alone, what can you ask them? One possibility is, “What are your thoughts about Jesus?” Then listen for how they talk about Jesus.
That could lead to further questions you come up with on your own to clarify the nature of their faith in Jesus. You don’t have to tell them what they should believe. Right now, you’re just listening. But you can explain your position if they ask you what you about your faith position. And this is generally true, if you have a good friendly relationship with the person, and you have been a good listener, eventually they will get around to asking you about your faith. Generally, people do enjoy comparing different viewpoints.
If you know they don’t go to church, so you wonder if they’re really saved, maybe you can ask an interesting question like, “Why do you think anybody goes to church?” Here’s an insight you need to be aware of. Most of the younger generation are still very interested in spiritual things. But they’re not interested in Christians, Christianity or the Church. In their minds, those words are associated with hypocrisy, shallowness, bigotry, and even hate. They can point to the crusades in Europe, the slavery and segregation in the USA. More recently, they think we’re homophobes.
Here’s an extreme example of what I mean. The Native American population has been very resistant to the gospel for a long time. The White people broke their promises on land treaties, tricked them and swindled them out of property, forced them onto reservations, forced them into English schools and Western European clothes, enslaved them, tortured them and even killed them. So how could they possibly believe that the white man’s God loved them?
I pulled some information from a Baptist website called Christian Headlines. It says there, “In the eyes of many [Native Americans], Christianity has been seen as the white man's religion, says Huron Claus, himself a Native American. "As a result, we've had the gospel for 500 years, yet less than 8 percent of our Native people are believers in the Lord." [i]
That kind of social dynamic just adds to the human natural resistance to the gospel. Modern young people, often called millennials, have their own set of cultural circumstances and history that sets up a bias against the established church. So, we need new strategies. We can’t just assume that people need convincing of the truth of the gospel. Instead we need to exhibit a Christian character of caring and compassion. One of the easiest ways to do that is to listen to their stories. Of course, you can’t fake it either. You do have to genuinely love people so that you want to listen. The greatest impact you can make on another person’s life is not by telling them how much you know, but by showing them how much you care.
Through good listening and wise questions, we will eventually understand how to love them in ways that they can appreciate. Once they feel that we respect them, we will earn their respect and gain a hearing to tell our own stories, stories about how a relationship with Jesus makes life better, brings hope and joy and meaning. Everyone is desperate to live a life that has meaning and makes a difference. We want to be significant. They want to be significant. Jesus makes everyone significant. Jesus has come to seek and to save the lost, even the least of these becomes important in Christ.
Now back to Moses, but a bit updated to apply to our situation. We’ll have to skip the burning bush. But we have the Bible full of truth that can cause our hearts to burn within us. To us the Lord says, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people all over the world. But you can concentrate on Lake City. You can even narrow it down further to people you know personally, like the one you are praying for on your one, one, one card.
I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers. They are slaves to sin that drives them to drunkenness and addiction, and misery and loneliness and emptiness and poverty and discord, but also to workaholism, and greed and hoarding riches or seeking significance in fame or accomplishments only to come up empty. Some have fallen into the ditches of despair. Others have climbed the ladder of success and found nothing there at the top. I am concerned about their suffering.
So, I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the satan and to bring them up out of worldly existence into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey, a spiritual life in relationship with their Savior, and yours, Jesus Christ. And now the cry of all my lost ones has reached me, and I have seen the way the demons are oppressing them. So now, go. I am sending you to the people to love them and listen to them and help them find their way to me. You are not sales people, telling them what they need. You are fellow travelers, looking for a chance to show them what you have found in me.”
[i]
http://www.christianheadlines.com/news/missionaries-to-native-americans-face-many-challenges-663240.html
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