OPENING THOUGHT:
How big is your world? If you have ever stepped on an airplane and flown across the country or the big Atlantic pond, then you have experienced a taste of how big the world really is. If you were to fly all the way around the world this year, you would be flying over 50 hours and traveling over 26,000 miles!

When I went on my first overseas mission trip to Zimbabwe, that meant leaving from Atlanta, flying across the pond to Europe and then down to South Africa. And one thing I learned about any given destination around the planet, I could get out and put my feet down on the ground and begin to find my place.

God wants each one of us, wherever we are at any given moment or place to find our place where we can live to the fullest for Him in that place. But we all know that the world is really big. And so, as we begin a new year with so much potential and new opportunity, how do you know if you are in the right place and moving in the right direction?

Turn with me to Exodus 3. In Exodus 3, we find that Moses’ world had become really, really small. He was working as a shepherd in the desert for a flock of sheep that was not his own. Every day, it was the same routine. But then one day, even without asking for it or looking for it, Moses experienced God! And this divine meeting with God changed the direction of his life! May you and I experience a divine meeting with God…

BACKGROUND:
Moses had been tending the sheep out in the deserts of Midian for forty years... Spending his days and most of his nights out with the sheep sleeping in shifts so that there was always a constant eye out, day in and day out. Besides himself and perhaps a few other shepherds out with the sheep, his world had become really, really small!

Though God may have been using a season like that to prepare him, not much else was happening for Moses out in the desert. His life had become disconnected from most of the outside world and his world had become very routine and very small.

I think about some of the routines that you and I get ourselves into. Sometimes in life it is like we put on blinders and go through each day the same way, going to the same job, driving the same route each way, eating at the same places. And while consistency can be really good for building relationships, sometimes our worlds get really, really small.

If I asked you to reach out to someone new, maybe someone who did not know Jesus, you might not have anybody in your world with whom to reach. Moses’ world had become like that. Yet, on this day, something different happened. We read at the end of 3:1 that Moses led the flock to the far part of the desert all the way over to Horeb. Why he did this, we may never know. Was it a stirring in his heart for something more… Or perhaps the power of God or both?

Either way when he arrived at the mountain of God… It was God who showed up, a divine meeting that would forever change the routine and the direction of his life. And I believe with all of my heart that when God shows up in your life, even when you might not be looking for him, something special is going to happen. The routine will no longer be just the routine, because, as we see in His Word right here, when God shows up…

All it took was a second look for Moses to notice that this was something different. By the power of God, this bush was filled up with a roaring flame, but it did not burn up. And so Moses made a slight deter from his routine, and God took care of the rest. What had been a place of rocks and dirt and bushes and sheep became a holy place because God was there in that place!

Have you ever thought about that? It is not anything that we do that makes something holy, but only God who can make something holy. And it is not just a church building or a classroom, but any room or any place can become a holy place when God shows up! Moses experienced the presence of God in the middle of the desert and that bush became one of the first temples for the Spirit of God.

Would it be too bold to tell you that even you can be made holy by the power of God in you? Paul would say that the temple is no longer a bush or a tent or even a building…

1 Corinthians 3:16
Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you?

When God shows up, there is power to change your life and set you apart from the normal routine. God’s power is with you and...

It had been a long time... Over 40 years for Moses and even longer for the people back in Egypt. And I am sure that the people wondered if God had forgotten, does God really care?

For some of you it has been a long time. Maybe you have felt distant from God or stuck in a routine or going through a time of suffering. But let this Word be a special comfort and promise for you that God really does care for you!

God saw the misery of his people and listened to their cries for help and he came down to rescue them. He came down is the message of hope. He came down is the message of Christmas and the gospel that God loves you so much that he would never stand back and hope that you might find your way to him. But instead, God himself came down from heaven to earth to be not just God way out there, but God with you in your time of need to give you what you need. All because his compassion is for you!

He knows, he cares, he is listening when you cry out to him! When God shows up, his power is with you, his compassion is for you and…

When God shows up, he will have a plan to guide you. But this is where you will have the same questions that Moses had, such as:

1. Am I good enough?
2. Do I know enough?
3. What if I fail?

There is always a risk of failure. But what if there is something worse than failure? What if it is worse to have never tried, to have never taken God at his word and stepped out of your routine, trusting that His power is with you and that He really does care about you?

God told Moses in verse 12, “I will be with you…” And because God is also with you, you can begin to pray bigger than your routine. Maybe this is the year to drive a different way home, to look for new ways to connect and help other people, to find that person who needs Jesus and invite them to church, to start that Bible study inside your home or at your job, or to go on that short term mission trip. Let God shake up your routine and enlarge your world!