Excuses that God Refuses

Have you heard the latest excuse for not coming to church? It goes like this: I was on my way to church and looked at my phone. It had a message at the top right corner, “no service” so I turned around and went home! Excuses, excuses, we all make them, don’t we? Right up with the colloquialism “to err is human” is the proverb “to make excuses is human as well.”

God is rich in mercy and has great love for His people. However, when it comes to our excuses, He often refuses them. In the Biblical texts, we can confidently say that, “God refuses our excused by empowering us for His purposes!” This truth is clearly seen in the life of Moses, when God revealed that He wanted Moses to lead the exodus of His people out of Egypt.

Moses had just experienced a supernatural phenomenon: a bush on fire that did not burn up, a voice from heaven—"you are on holy ground,” and a call to lead Israel out of Egypt to the promised land (Exodus 3:1-10). WOW!—what an amazing invitation! But Moses had already tried to do what God had called him to do in his own way and it resulted in the death of an Egyptian and the rejection of his countryman—in fact that was the whole reason he was following sheep in the desert (Exodus 2:11-15).

After many years of following his father-in-law’s flock, God asks him to do what God had purposed this “prince of Egypt” to do and deliver His people from the bondage of Egypt. Moses makes four excuses as to why he shouldn’t follow the Lord’s will—they are excuses common to all of us. The first one is found in 3:13-14, I’m calling it the:

1. “I’m not qualified to do this” Excuse--who am I?

This at first may come across as a humble statement, for who are we apart from Jesus! But too often we like Moses pull the “I don’t have enough experience card” Our fear gets in the way not our humility. Notice that God refuses this excuse by basically saying, “It’s who I am that really matters not you! I will go with you!”

How often we shrink back from intimacy with our Lord because we forget that one of the last things he said while on this earth was Matthew 28:20, “I am with you always!” God refuses our excuses by empowering us for His purposes. When Moses used the “not trained enough” excuse, God refused it by empowering him with the promise of His never-failing promise of companionship. Well Moses wasn’t done with making excuses, just like us, in Exodus 3:13-32 he came up in with the:

#2 “I don’t know what to say” Excuse--What should I say? What’s your name?

Often this is the excuse that keeps us from sharing the good news of Jesus with people—which the exodus pictures--he good news that we can be set free from the slavery of sin of Egypt and delivered through the Red Sea of the sacrifice of our Savior on the cross. God refuses Moses’ excuse by giving Moses God’s most sacred name “I am” or in Hebrew what is often referred to as the tetragrammaton “YHWH.” The God who always is both past, present, and future was sending Moses. God also reminds Moses of His promise that He made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob! God was assuring Moses that He knew what He was doing and would fulfill His promise using Moses! God refused Moses’ excuse by empowering him for His purpose. He longs to do the same with us. Moses was not done yet with his excuses. His third excuse was...

#3 “Nobody will listen to me” Excuse—Will they listen to me? Exodus 4:1-9

Like Moses our excuses often get weaker and weaker while His promises and power gets stronger and stronger. When following the Lord in obedience there is often a fear of failure, but this is due to the misunderstanding that following Him is up to us. Notice the powerful provision that God promises in response to this excuse. God gave Moses some convincing signs and wonders to perform to convince His people Israel and ten convincing signs to convince Pharaoh. You see God refuses our excuses by empowering us for His purposes. The final excuse Moses uses is his weakest and God’s refusal of it is the frankest.

#4 “I am not spiritually gifted for this” Excuse—Why me? I can’t speak Exodus 4:10-17

In Christ we all have been granted spiritual gifts or abilities that we get to use in serving one another for His glory (Ephesians 4:7). It is good for us to discern and know how He has gifted us, but it is also good to not use the excuse that I don’t have the gifts to do what we know is God’s will in our lives. This is what Moses was doing when he asked God why me—I can’t speak. We are not certain how true this excuse was. We do know he was trained as an Egyptian prince and part of that training was public oratory, so at least he had training! When Stephen was speaking of Moses in Acts 7:22, Moses is described and being “mighty in his words and deeds.” We also know that his spokesman Aaron didn’t continue to be his mouthpiece as he led the nation of Israel out. And by the way, Aaron failed as Moses’ press secretary didn’t he. But in the final analysis Moses was saying: Why me?—somebody else could do so much better!

At this point it seems that God has had enough of Moses’ excuses. He pulls the “I’m the creator God so don’t tell me you can’t speak,I made your mouth!” I love how patient and longsuffering our Savior is with us! God provides Aaron to alleviate Moses’ fear of public speaking—but as I mentioned before, Aaron was a lousy press secretary that Moses stopped using as the exodus moved forward.

How about you and me? Like Moses, let’s not use excuses to refuse to follow the way He desires to use us! God refuses our excuses by empowering us for His purposes!