Listen up, little ones
Listen for the word God.
Reading
Exodus 3:1-12—Who am I
Keys for kids
- Moses felt unable to serve God.
- God said, I will be with you.
- God calls his people to worship him.
Questions
- How did Moses respond to God’s call?
- How did God respond to Moses’s inadequacy?
- How does God respond to our inadequacy?
Notes
(Today’s notes are from a commentary on Exodus by Alec Motyer) Moses’ first problem was his sense of personal inadequacy, the ‘What? Me?’ syndrome. Moses said, ‘Who am I?’ and the Lord replied, ‘But I …’. Notice the Lord’s graciousness here in not trying to deny Moses’ inadequacy. How differently we react to each other. Somebody comes to us and says, ‘I’m not really up to it,’ and we immediately and thoughtlessly reply, ‘Of course you are!’ That is not the way the Lord dealt with Moses—or the way he deals with us. He does not sweep the difficulties we feel aside. Moses said, ‘Lord, I’m not adequate’, and the Lord said, ‘No, but I am!’ He accepted Moses’ self-estimate and graciously promised his presence as adequate for the inadequate man. He neither said to him, ‘Of course you’re adequate,’ denying Moses’ feelings, nor did he say to him, ‘It doesn’t matter.’ He accepted Moses’ sense of inadequacy as one of the facts of the situation, but then countered it by the adequacy of his own presence.
This is so important it is worth trying to put it another way. Moses’ position was, ‘Look, I’m not up to the job. You shouldn’t have picked me.’ The Lord’s reply was, ‘Of course you are not up to the job. I knew that when I chose you for it. The point is not your ability but mine!’ Moses’ ‘I’ of incapacity is balanced by the Lord’s ‘I’ of ability. …The Lord does not call us because of our adequacy, nor is his presence conditional upon us becoming adequate, it is rather promised to those who are inadequate. When we say, ‘But I’m not adequate’, the Lord says ‘You needn’t tell me, but I will be with you.’
Swedish Method questions
Praise
Psalm 89a, 10a
Prayer
- Give thanks that God is adequate even when you aren’t.
- Give thanks for something from last Lord’s Day’s sermons.
- Pray for a member of our church, for your family, and for a non-Christian friend/family member.