Exodus 2:11-25
11 Now it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown, that he went out to his brethren and looked at their burdens. And he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his brethren. 12 So he looked this way and that way, and when he saw no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. 13 And when he went out the second day, behold, two Hebrew men were fighting, and he said to the one who did the wrong, “Why are you striking your companion?”
14 Then he said, “Who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you intend to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?”
So Moses feared and said, “Surely this thing is known!” 15 When Pharaoh heard of this matter, he sought to kill Moses. But Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh and dwelt in the land of Midian; and he sat down by a well.
16 Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters. And they came and drew water, and they filled the troughs to water their father’s flock. 17 Then the shepherds came and drove them away; but Moses stood up and helped them, and watered their flock.
18 When they came to Reuel their father, he said, “How is it that you have come so soon today?”
19 And they said, “An Egyptian delivered us from the hand of the shepherds, and he also drew enough water for us and watered the flock.”
20 So he said to his daughters, “And where is he? Why is it that you have left the man? Call him, that he may eat bread.”
21 Then Moses was content to live with the man, and he gave Zipporah his daughter to Moses. 22 And she bore him a son. He called his name Gershom, for he said, “I have been a stranger in a foreign land.”
23 Now it happened in the process of time that the king of Egypt died. Then the children of Israel groaned because of the bondage, and they cried out; and their cry came up to God because of the bondage. 24 So God heard their groaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. 25 And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God acknowledged them.

Exodus 3:1-10
1 Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. And he led the flock to the back of the desert, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 And the Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush. So he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed. 3 Then Moses said, “I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush does not burn.”
4 So when the Lord saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.”
5 Then He said, “Do not draw near this place. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground.” 6 Moreover He said, “I am the God of your father—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God.
7 And the Lord said: “I have surely seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. 8 So I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites. 9 Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come to Me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. 10 Come now, therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring My people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.”

After this, Moses makes his protests to God about why there’s no way he could possibly do what God told him to do, yet Moses through the power of God goes on to not only deliver the people out of Egypt with miraculous signs and wonders, but lead them in the wilderness to the border of the Promised Land. And just for fun, God also uses Moses to deliver the law to the people which would guide their lives even to today.

There were four steps in this process I would like to highlight today. These four steps are what we have to choose to do as well if we are going to do what God asks of us.

We’re going to work last back to first, but for a specific reason. You’ll never get to the last one until you embrace the first one.

Four Cs for More
Last one first:

1. You Are A Conduit
God has called us to be a conduit of his blessing to others. A conduit is something that passes one thing to another. In electricity, it is the electrical charge that is passed. In plumbing, it is water that is passed. The word is from the Latin cunductus meaning to “bring together.”

God has tasked us with bringing together his blessing with his people. This is what God wanted Moses to do.

Exodus 3:9-10
…behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come to Me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. 10 Come now, therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring My people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.

In other words: Moses, you are the conduit that will bring my people and my plan together. You are the conduit of blessing that I am pouring out.

You might not be tasked with delivering Hebrews from the oppression of the Egyptians, but there is someone in your world whom God wants you to bring together with him. There is someone who needs you to be the conduit. And God wants you to be that conduit.

But herein lies the problem:
That God wants you to bring together people and himself. The problem isn’t the bringing together. The problem is that he wants to use you.

Even Moses saw that as a problem.
Exodus 3:11
But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?”

If you are going to be used as a conduit of God’s blessing, it means you have to be a container of it first.

2. You Are A Container
What I mean is do you know Jesus and have an active relationship with him?

Moses was 40 years old when he killed the Egyptian guard.We know this because the Bible tells us so:

Acts 7:23-24
23 As he was approaching the age of 40, he decided to visit his brothers, the Israelites. 24 When he saw one of them being mistreated, he came to his rescue and avenged the oppressed man by striking down the Egyptian.

This means he’d spent 40 years as an Egyptian. He’d obviously learned he was not a blood Egyptian, but Hebrew, but did he know God? A case could be made he knew at least the basics based on two points:
- He mother cared for him from birth to about 2 years old, so I am sure he at least knew of her. Did he interact with her as an adult?
- He thought the Hebrews would approve of his defending them.

Acts 7:25
He assumed his brothers would understand that God would give them deliverance through him, but they did not understand.

We’ll address the idea that Moses thought he was the deliverer of the Hebrews here in a moment. #foreshadowing

Moses was 80 when he encountered the burning bush. That means he’d spent 40 years with Jethro, who worshipped God. Even still, we have nothing in the Bible that assures us Moses did too.

There are a couple of things that make us believe he was NOT.

Acts 7:22
Moses was educated in everything Egyptian, including worship.

This is most likely a part of why Moses understood the plagues, as he had learned about every single Egyptian god that the plagues refuted.

Second, Exodus 3:12
When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.

This alludes to the idea that Moses was not currently serving God. He wasn’t in covenant with God.

Why am I making such a fuss about this?
You cannot possibly be a conduit of that which you do not contain.

The Moses that we see leaving the burning bush is not adequately prepared for the task before him. I am certain that you have felt like that plenty of times as God has asked you to do something.

I cannot imagine trying to do what God asked of me outside of an active relationship with him.

How can you convince others to embrace what you yourself have not? This really gets to the idea that knowledge only goes so far. You might be able to tell me everything I want to know about a pool of water, even down to the chemical elements, but you could never tell me what it feels like to jump in until you yourself experience that.

Is this where some of us are today?
We know what God wants us to do, we might have even had a burning bush moment where God miraculously confirmed it, but we are missing the covenant side of it, the relationship. This could be why so many people stop at the threshold of conductivity. Because they are not carrying the current to begin with!

I don’t mean to challenge your salvation, but if all God is to you is a series of do’s and don’t’s and as far as you can tell, living for Jesus is just trying to be a nice person, then I’d lovingly encourage you to check your spiritual self.

This is why a passage like this exists:

Matthew 7:21-23
21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

Is an empty container keeping you from being an effective conduit?

I want to show you how to fix this, but your flesh isn’t going to like it.

3. You Need Circumcision
We can pretty securely surmise that Moses was not currently serving God, and that he wasn’t in covenant with God. Yet Moses went to Jethro and asked to return to Egypt. Why? Miraculous signs: burning bush itself, God speaking to him, miracles of the leprous hand and staff that became a snake (Exodus 4). That would be enough to get me moving. I moved to Liberty County for less that that.

But then there’s this really odd event after Moses begins the journey back to Egypt that, to me, tells the tale.

Exodus 4:21-26
21 And the Lord said to Moses, “When you go back to Egypt, see that you do all those wonders before Pharaoh which I have put in your hand. But I will harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go. 22 Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the Lord: “Israel is My son, My firstborn. 23 So I say to you, let My son go that he may serve Me. But if you refuse to let him go, indeed I will kill your son, your firstborn.” ’ ”
24 And it came to pass on the way, at the encampment, that the Lord met him and sought to kill him. 25 Then Zipporah took a sharp stone and cut off the foreskin of her son and cast it at Moses’ feet, and said, “Surely you are a husband of blood to me!” 26 So He let him go. Then she said, “You are a husband of blood!”—because of the circumcision.

Ok let’s unpack this, because, honestly, this is the crux of the message today.

Moses
It is almost guaranteed that Moses was circumcised based on the fact he was in his mother’s care for the first 2 years of his life, yet for the following 38 years, the Bible tells us he was raised exclusively as an Egyptian.

Acts 7:22
Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in his speech and actions.

Interesting that Moses confronts God on his ability when he was literally renown for it. It is amazing how events can suppress generational blessing.

It is clear that Moses at least knew something of the God of the Hebrews in that he expected the slaves to approve of his defending them when he killed the Egyptian. It is also clear that Moses was clearly not serving the God of the Hebrews in that his own son was not circumcised. So what we have here is a Hebrew who is not observant of God nor serving him.

Moses’ Son
The Bible doesn’t specify who God was trying to kill, Moses, or Moses’ son in v24. Yet we see in the verses preceding and succeeding v24 the Bible specifically refers to sons. Preceding: killing Pharaoh’s son, Succeeding: circumcising Moses’ son

Zipporah, who was raised in a family that served God, knew exactly what to do and observed the act that signified covenant with God.

She immediately throws the cutting at Moses’ feet and declared, “You are a husband of blood.” Now this is odd. I’m glad Monique didn’t do this to me with William. What does this mean?

This is the first time blood is used in conjunction with the act of circumcision which signifies covenant with God. What is amazing is how this correlates with the rest of the Exodus story.

In Exodus 12, God commands the children of Israel to sacrifice a lamb and anoint the doorposts with blood. This will signify to the Angel of Death to pass over that house, sparing those inside. To be left outside of the home meant death. Who were the only ones outside the home, the ones not allowed to eat the passover meal? Those who were not circumcised, meaning those who were not in covenant with God. So what is it about the blood of circumcision? The blood of circumcision is like the blood of a sacrifice. It signifies covenant.

If you are going to be in covenant with God, it is going to require circumcision. You are not required to be physically circumcised to be in covenant with God.

Romans 4:11-13
11 Circumcision was a sign that Abraham already had faith and that God had already accepted him and declared him to be righteous—even before he was circumcised. So Abraham is the spiritual father of those who have faith but have not been circumcised. They are counted as righteous because of their faith. 12 And Abraham is also the spiritual father of those who have been circumcised, but only if they have the same kind of faith Abraham had before he was circumcised. 13 Clearly, God’s promise to give the whole earth to Abraham and his descendants was based not on his obedience to God’s law, but on a right relationship with God that comes by faith.

You are not required to be physically circumcised to be in covenant with God, but there has to be a spiritual circumcision. That “right relationship with God by faith” is what I am talking about here.

Colossians 2:11-14
11 When you came to Christ, you were “circumcised,” but not by a physical procedure. Christ performed a spiritual circumcision—the cutting away of your sinful nature. 12 For you were buried with Christ when you were baptized. And with him you were raised to new life because you trusted the mighty power of God, who raised Christ from the dead. 13 You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. 14 He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross.

There are things in our lives that have to be cut out whenever we say yes to Jesus. We all know this, but this is one of the things we struggle with the most. We have this old nature that lives to satisfy the flesh that has to be dealt with.
- That could be old mindset from your family of origin.
- That could be sin that you habitually struggle with.
- That may be a certain way of doing things that you refuse to bend on.
- That may be living your own way, only letting God in when you have a problem.
But it all has to be metaphorically circumcised out of your life.

You are not the only person that has struggled with this. We see it in Moses as well. This moment with Zipporah and his son forced Moses to abandon his pagan ways and get into covenant with the God of the Burning Bush.

I know you want God to use you mightily and for your life to mean something, but the truth is, you’ll never get to the conduit stage until you embrace the container stage. And you’ll never get the container stage without a circumcision.

What is keeping you from advancing to a place where you can be a conduit? What is keeping you from being filled to overflowing in a relationship with God? What is it that needs to be cut out of your life? Cutting isn’t always pretty. It's painful and it means letting go. Even when it's good like in terms of a surgery, it still means blood loss and pain and recovery.

A sin that needs to be cut away. A thought process that needs to be sacrificed. A lie that needs to be severed. An action that needs to be removed from your life.

Maybe it is something else. So many people we talk to want what God has for them, but they don’t think they deserve it. They are convinced that God doesn’t pour out good things because of their past or based on what they’ve done. I’m not good enough. I’m not smart enough. I’m not spiritual enough. I don’t have what it takes.

4. You Need Convincing.
Do you? Do you need someone to just grab you by the shoulders and tell you you’re enough? Do you need to know you’re worth it? That God hasn’t given up on you? That he’s called you for a purpose? That you matter and your voice matters? That all he wants is you and he’ll take care of the rest? Do you need to hear him say I still love you, I still forgive you, I’m still for you?

Moses did, too, but it is so amazing when you really look at the story how God dealt with Moses’ deficiencies.

In 5 protests/rebuttles/excuses whatever you want to call them, God responded the same way every time. Moses incessantly told God that he wasn’t good enough for the task. I am sure Moses felt guilt. How? The last time Moses tried to save the Hebrews he murdered someone and then got shot down by the very people he was trying to defend. Even 40 years later, Moses felt it.

Maybe God is asking you to walk right into the nightmare that you tried your whole life to get out of. Maybe he's asking you to go face the people that you never wanted to face again. Maybe he's asking you to do something and all you feel is guilt, shame, that you aren't enough, that you're incapable, that you don't deserve it.

God NEVER acknowledged Moses’ excuses by agreeing with him.

Exodus 4:11-12
11 But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” 12 So He said, “I will certainly be with you. And this shall be a sign to you that I have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.”

Who do I say sent me? God says, “I Am sent you.” What if they don’t believe me? God performs 2 miracles. I don’t talk good. God says, “I made you and I will tell your mouth what to say.” Send someone else. God says, “I’ll send Aaron WITH you and I’ll tell you both what to say.”

In that moment, Moses could not understand the truth:
being the conduit, nor the container, was about perfection. It wasn’t about Moses being enough or capable. It was about his willingness to trust and obey God, in spite of his deficiencies.

“God, I don’t feel like I am good enough for this, but I trust you.
God, I don’t know how to tell them why I am here and I am terrified of what I should say, but I know you asked me and I believe you will guide me.
God, I don’t feel like I have the abilities I need for this job, but I choose to believe it is not by my might nor power but by your spirit.
I’m even scared to go alone, but I know you’ll be with me.”

The issue with Moses in that moment, and possibly you right now, is that all of the weight of what God is asking you to do you’ve placed on your own shoulders and you've made this assumption that you've got to have your life in perfect mode before you can actually embrace everything God has for you. That's just a lie from the devil to keep you from progressing.

The truth is that God never used a perfect person other than Christ himself.
He always uses flawed, broken people.

And you might think that's some kind of flaw in God's system. You're wrong again. The fact that you are broken and need God is actually a blessing! It is a tool that will keep you leaning on him instead of your own ability. The only thing worse than not doing what God asked you to do is trying to do it thinking you don't need him.

So perhaps the way we end today is by focusing on two things.
First, you need to be convinced that God wants you to be a conduit for the more, but that it has nothing to do with your perfection. It's all about your willingness.

He knows you have issues and that you’re trying to address them, but
maybe you need to stop fighting against what God's asking, and simply acknowledge the fact that you are broken, that you need him, and then choose to trust that whatever he asks you to do, he'll empower you for it and see it through to the end.

But second, maybe a circumcision needs to take place today.
Maybe you need to cut something out of your life that you know is keeping you from what God has for you. A sin, a mindset, a vow you’ve made, your past and how you feel about it…Maybe you need to take the leap right now and accept Jesus for the first time and allow him to cut that sinful nature away from you for the first time.

I can only convince you to a certain point. At some point, you're going to have to listen to the Holy Spirit and do what he asks you to do.

John 16:8
He (the Holy Spirit) will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment.
Convict is elengo, a word that means to expose or bring to light. I am asking you to allow the Holy Spirit to shine light on how you need to respond.

What is the Holy Spirit saying to you through this message?

How does he want you to respond?