Amelia Church of Christ - Christian Church in Amelia, OH near Cincinnati in Clermont County

We are kicking off a brand new series today called Lost Causes.

I don’t normally read the Message paraphrase of the Bible, but every once in a while I read through some of it. Not that long ago, I ran across a verse in this paraphrase that stopped me in my tracks. I read this and immediately though, “Wow. That’s me.”

In Psalm 88:4, the Message paraphrase says, “I’m written off as a lost cause, one more statistic, a hopeless case.” (Psalm 88:4, The Message)

Have you ever felt like that? You have, haven’t you? Some of you feel like that right now, don’t you?

I’m hopeless. I’m a lost cause. Just write me off.

It might be a comfort for you to know that your pastor has been right there with you. In fact, there are times when I’m still right there with you. There are times when I feel like I ought to just throw in the towel. Why do I even try when all I seem to do is fail? Why should I even care anymore when I seem to be a lost cause?

I obviously can’t give you an exact number, but I’ll tell you this…it would shock you if you knew how many people in our church have this deep, dark struggle. It would shock you to know how many of our leaders share in this struggle. Maybe it shocks you to hear that I have this struggle.

But that’s exactly why we need this series. You need this series. The people sitting beside you, in front of you, and behind you need this series. I need this series. I need God to do something in my heart and in my mind and in my life over the next three weeks. I’m betting that you need Him to do the same thing for you. So let’s start by asking…pleading…begging God to show up and do what only He can do.

Over the next three weeks, we’re going to explore three different areas in our lives that make us feel like a lost cause. Today, we’re kicking off the series by talking about our inadequacy.

My inadequacy is a lost cause. For some of you, you might as well put up a mailbox right here because this is where you live. You feel completely inadequate, and it makes you feel like you’re a lost cause.

You’re not alone. Let me give you a tour of Mike Edmisten’s mind on a Sunday. Any Sunday. Doesn’t matter what time of year. Any Sunday, Mike Edmisten gets out of bed with this thought. “It’s Sunday. I’m headed to church. I wonder if anyone else will be there.”

He shaves, showers, eats breakfast…and all the while, he’s having a conversation with himself. “You think anybody will be there? I don’t know. I kind of doubt it.”

He walks into the church building. Sees all the worship volunteers show up early for practice. Sees the number of volunteers that show up for our children’s ministry every week. And he says to himself, “Well, they’re only here because they have to be. I bet no one else comes.”

And then when we open the doors and people start arriving for the service, he looks around and says, “Hmm. People are coming. They’re actually coming. Wow! That’s awesome! But I bet they won’t come next week.”

If you think I’m exaggerating, I’m really not. And it’s all rooted in my deep, deep feelings of inadequacy. If I’m the preacher, then of course no one is going to come!

Now, after hearing all that, here’s the part that might really surprise you…I’m actually better than I used to be. I’m actually making some strides in my insecurity battle. This scenario that I just described is actually better than it used to be. It just illustrates how deeply embedded my insecurity and feelings of inadequacy really goes.

Maybe you’re not that extreme. Maybe you’re more extreme. But you battle with feelings of inadequacy. And there are times in this battle when you feel so inadequate that it just feels like you’re a lost cause.

You’re in very good company. You would be hard pressed to find one great man or woman of God in the Bible that didn’t have this exact same struggle.

One of the best examples is Moses. We’re going to spend most of our time today in Exodus 3-4. It’s not only an incredible story, but it’s an incredibly applicable story. If you’re struggling with strong feelings of inadequacy, God is going to use this story to begin a work of change in your life.

In the beginning of Exodus 3, the Bible says, “Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.” (Exodus 3:1, NIV)

This verse appears to be nothing more than a setup verse. It’s like the establishment shot on a TV show where they show you the outside of the house or the office building. It doesn’t tell you what’s going to happen. It just tells you where it’s going to happen.

This verse feels like a setup, establishment shot. Nothing really happens. It just tells you where something will happen. But actually, something really significant happens in this verse. We find out a great source of Moses’ chronic inadequacy.

Moses was a shepherd. A common, ordinary, workaday shepherd. There was no honor or prestige in being a shepherd. There was nothing special about being a shepherd.

But actually, it’s worse than that for Moses. Moses was a shepherd for someone else’s sheep. He was watching over his father-in-law’s sheep.

His father-in-law was somebody. He was a priest. That commanded honor and respect. Jethro was somebody. Moses was just a nobody, laboring in obscurity, watching over someone else’s sheep.

That’s how you feel sometimes, isn’t it? You’re just laboring in total obscurity. Nobody sees how hard you work. Nobody notices your contributions. Nobody cares about what is going in your life. In this life, there are somebodies and there are nobodies…and you’re a nobody. Moses would totally get that.

But now, look where Moses is. He led the sheep to Horeb, which the Bible calls “the mountain of God.” Another name for Horeb is Mt. Sinai.

If you know your Old Testament, you know that God did some amazing stuff at Horeb or Mt. Sinai. This would be the site of some amazing works of God.

But at this point, none of that happened. In Exodus 3, Horeb is called “the mountain of God,” not because of what God had done, but because of what God was going to do there. And one of those things was the incredible encounter between Moses and God in our story.

Starting in the next verse in Exodus 3, the Bible says, “There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.”

When the LORD saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!”

And Moses said, “Here I am.”

“Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” Then he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.” (Exodus 3:2-6, NIV)

Moses was a shepherd watching someone else’s sheep. Ordinary. Insignificant. But this really was the mountain of God. Moses didn’t expect God to show up, but God defied his expectations and showed up anyway.

Some of you come to church every single week, but you never come expecting God to show up. You come to the church, the modern-day mountain of God, but you don’t expect anything amazing to happen. You don’t expect something miraculous to happen. You come to the mountain of God, but you don’t expect to encounter God.

But God is not governed by peoples’ limited perspectives or small expectations. God shows up. And when God shows up, everything changes. That’s what happened to Moses.

Starting in the next verse of Exodus 3, “The LORD 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. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them.” (Exodus 3:7-9, NIV)

God shows up and tells Moses, “I’ve seen how my people are suffering. I’ve seen how brutal the Egyptians have been toward my people. And I’m going to do something about it. I’m going to lead my people out of Egypt and I’m going to give them a land of their own. An incredible land. A land of amazing blessings. It’s going to be awesome.”

And at this point, Moses is saying, “That sounds awesome. That’s amazing. I’m really glad you’re going to do something about this. Way to go, God.”

Next verse. God looked at Moses and said, “So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.” (Exodus 3:10, NIV)

Say what? I was with you. I was tracking right with you until now. But you…you want me…to do what? You want me, a shepherd…a shepherd who doesn’t even have any sheep of my own…you want me to go to Pharoah? The freaking king of Egypt? You want me to do what?

Moses was blown away by God’s call on his life. Can I tell you something? If you could truly see God’s call on your life, it would blow you away, too.

When you truly see the call that God has placed on your life, you will feel small. You will feel ill-equipped. You will feel inadequate.

In fact, if you see God’s plan and you believe you are up to the challenge, something is very, very wrong.

Feelings of inadequacy are a normal part of life for a follower of Christ. It’s normal. The more you grow in Christ…the more you come to understand God’s calling for your life…the more clearly you see what God wants to do in you and through you…the more inadequate you will feel. It’s totally normal.

But it can also be dangerous. Inadequacy does not mean insufficiency. Feelings of inadequacy cannot produce a perception of insufficiency.

That’s exactly what happened to Moses. And far, far too often, that’s exactly what happens to us.

Go to the next verse in Exodus 3. God has just told Moses. I’m going to send you to Pharaoh to lead my people out of Egypt. Here’s how Moses responds.

“But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”

And God said, “I will be with you.” (Exodus 3:11-12a, NIV)

God laid out the vision for Moses’ life. He would be the one to lead the Israelites out of their Egyptian captivity. He would be the one to look Pharaoh in the eye and say, “Pharaoh, Pharaoh, oh baby, let my people go.” (You’ve been in the church for a while if you got that joke.) Moses was going to be the one to stand up to Pharaoh and then lead the nation of Israel to freedom.

That’s a pretty audacious vision for a hireling shepherd. And understandably, Moses felt completely inadequate. That’s normal. But those feelings of inadequacy led to a perception of insufficiency, which is deadly.

Moses asked God, “Who am I? Who am I to go to Pharaoh? Who am I to lead your people to do anything or to go anywhere? I’m a lost cause. And with me leading it, this mission is a lost cause. Seriously…who am I?”

We look at Moses and we see a great hero of the Old Testament. We see Charlton Heston receiving the Ten Commandments. That’s the Moses that we see.

Moses saw himself quite differently. And a lot of us can relate to that. I know I can.

I remember a time when I came home from a meeting with some people in our church. Nicki asked me how things went. I said, “I wish I was half the man that these people think I am.”

It’s true. I wish I was as good and gifted and godly as people seem to think that I am. But the truth of the matter is I feel incredibly inadequate as a pastor, as a husband, as a father, and as a man of God.

Other people think they know me, but I know me better than they do. So I ask the same question that Moses did. “Who am I? Who am I to preach the Word to God’s people? Who am I to be a father of these two little boys? Who am I to love and lead and serve a woman as awesome as my wife? Who am I to be an example for Christ in this town? Who am I?”

Here’s what I’m learning. “Who am I?” is the wrong question. The question is not, “Who am I?” The question is, “God, who are you?” That’s the right question.

Some of you are facing incredible challenges. Your facing challenges with your health, your spouse, your job, your finances, your relationships, your emotions, your kids, your future. You are facing incredible challenges, and you feel totally inadequate. You look at everything in front of you and you say, “Who am I?”

Wrong question.

It’s not, “Who am I?” It’s, “God, who are you?”

And God gives us the same answer that He gave Moses. Moses saw the challenge and said, “Who am I to do this?” God’s response was simple. “I am with you.”

God told Moses, “Who you are is the wrong question. The right question is who am I? Who I am is God. And I am with you. That’s enough. That’s all you need. That’s sufficient. Your inadequacy does not trump my sufficiency.”

But Moses didn’t buy it. He went on to make three more excuses about why he couldn’t accomplish the mission. In Exodus 3-4, we see a total of four different excuses that Moses made. Instead of recognizing God’s sufficiency, he kept focusing on his own inadequacy.

Let’s fast-forward to the final excuse that Moses made. In Exodus 4, starting in verse 10, the Bible says, “Moses said to the LORD, “Pardon your servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.” [Moses is focusing on his own inadequacy. A lot of people believe that Moses had a speech impediment. Maybe he struggled with stuttering or something like that. Maybe this was like an ancient version of The King’s Speech. What we do know for sure is that Moses kept looking at his inadequacy instead of God’s sufficiency.]

The LORD said to him, “Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute? Who gives them sight or makes them blind? Is it not I, the LORD? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.” [God’s sufficiency would trump Moses’ inadequacy. He simply needed to trust that God would be with him like He had promised. But no dice.]

But Moses said, “Pardon your servant, Lord. Please send someone else.”

Then the LORD’s anger burned against Moses…” (Exodus 4:10-14a, NIV)

I read an article by Steven Furtick based on these verses. In the article, he said, “There’s a saying that goes, “If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans.” Well apparently, if you want to make God mad, tell Him your limitations.

God had approached Moses with an assignment that was over his head. The Lord was going to take on the leader of the most powerful nation in the world at that time in order to free His people from slavery…and Moses was going to be His representative.

Moses’ initial response seemed to indicate a genuine humility: Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt (3:11)?

God simply responds with, “I will be with you.” No hint of anger whatsoever.

Moses continues to ask questions, all of them pretty legitimate. And every time, God responds by giving him a game plan and telling him He’s got it covered. Once again, no anger.

But then Moses oversteps his bounds. He implies that his poor communication skills will undercut God’s intention to use him to speak on His behalf. We might be tempted to think that Moses is once again displaying humility.

In fact, it’s just the opposite. It’s pride.

Moses’ problem isn’t that he’s too humble and doesn’t believe in himself. It’s that he’s prideful and thinks God’s capability rises and falls with his own inability.

We often think pride means overconfidence in our own abilities. But there is another side to pride that is often overlooked. It can also mean that you believe your limitations are an unstoppable obstacle to God’s power and purposes in your life.

There’s nothing quite so prideful as thinking that you have the ability to single-handedly thwart what God wants to do in and through you.

This time God isn’t patient or nice to Moses. He doesn’t respond with a “you just need to believe in yourself, you’re better than you think,” motivational talk. He actually turns angry because Moses’ perspective is monumentally insulting to God. A God with limitless power and ability has no desire or time to hear about the limitations of the people He wants to use.

True humility doesn’t start with having an accurate view of ourselves. It starts with having an accurate view of God. And an accurate view of God will both shrink us down to size and also make us realize that God is big enough to use anybody of any size.

Maybe you think you’re doomed to be a miserable parent because you had miserable parents. Maybe you think your lack of an education will keep you from making a significant impact for God’s Kingdom. Maybe you believe your friend’s response to Jesus is based solely on the excellence of your gospel presentation.

You’re not that big. God knew your limitations long before you were ever even aware of them. Don’t stop selling yourself short. Stop selling God short. He used a stuttering, murdering shepherd to set a whole nation free.

Imagine what He could do with you.”

“Who am I?” is the wrong question. “What can I do?” is the wrong question. “What about all my limitations and mistakes and shortcomings?” is the wrong question.

“God, who are you?” is the right question. “God, let me see who you are. Show me how your sufficiency trumps my inadequacy.”

Eventually Moses got this lesson. Later on in the book of Exodus, we find Moses having another conversation with God. In some ways, Moses is still sounding like his old self. He is telling God, “You’ve told me to lead these people, but I still don’t know. I’m still not sure about all this.”

God once again assures Moses that He is with him. And that’s when we see a turning point in Moses’ life. An ah-ha moment. A point where we see that Moses gets it.

He lays out his concerns, his anxiety, and his worries to God. God says, “I’m still with you.”

And in Exodus 33:18, Moses gets it. “Then Moses said, “Now show me your glory.” (Exodus 33:18, NIV)

“God, I’m done looking at me. I’m done examining my own inadequacy. I’m done dwelling on my shortcomings and flaws and failures. I want to see You. I want to know You. You are with me. You are sufficient for me. I might not understand everything that’s happening, and honestly I’m still struggling with worry and anxiety. That’s why I need to see you. I’m done worrying about, ‘Who am I?’ What I want to know is, ‘Who are you?’”

That is the question. Do you know who God is? Do you know Him enough to trust Him? Do you believe in his sufficiency instead of your own inadequacy?

I told you earlier that I struggle deeply with inadequacy. It’s true. I do wrestle with this, and I’ve got a long, long way to go. But very slowly, I’m learning that if God called me to it, God will lead me through it.

That’s a truth that we all need to own as 2012 unfolds. That’s a truth that we need to own for the rest of our lives. If God led you to it, God will lead you through it. It’s not about who you are. It’s about who He is.

There’s a great verse in Acts 4. Peter and John had been boldly preaching about Jesus, which got them arrested. When the legalistic religious leaders questioned them, Acts 4:13 tells us what they found.

“When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.” (Acts 4:13, NIV)

They were unschooled, ordinary guys. But here’s the cool part.

The Greek word for ordinary in this verse is the word idiotes. It’s where we get our English word “idiot.” I love that! Peter and John were just like me—idiots! Ordinary, unschooled idiots. But the question wasn’t, “Who are Peter and John?” The question was, “Who is Jesus?”

They were ordinary, unschooled, inadequate guys who were able to do something extraordinary because of who Jesus is.

I don’t pretend to know what all of your challenges are. But I know who your God is. You may feel totally inadequate. You may think things in your life are a lost cause. But you have a God named Jesus Christ. And lost causes are His specialty.

He took all of your inadequacy, all of your shortcomings and failures, all of your sins…He took it all on His own shoulders and He carried it to the cross. The cross is the forever payment for your sin. And it is the permanent sign to us that Jesus will never leave us and that He is all that we need.

Your inadequacy will never, ever surpass His sufficiency.

Mike Edmisten

Tags: Exodus, God's power, inadequacy, Lost_Causes, Moses