Be Still And Know

Exodus 4:16 “Aaron will be your spokesman to the people. He will be your mouthpiece, and you will stand in the place of God for him, telling him what to say.” Moses felt sure that his speech difficulties disqualified him from serving God. How could someone who was tongue-tied possibly lead the people of Israel and negotiate with Pharaoh? The answer was simple. His brother Aaron could fulfil that part of the role, and Moses could be the person who kept close to God and listened to his voice. In an ideal world, Moses would have been a perfect communicator and would have been able to do to the job himself, but in the real world he needed help. We don’t live in an ideal world! This means that we need to be continually light on our feet and ready to adapt to new circumstances. The pandemic forced us to change and adapt in all sorts of different ways. In our churches, we had to look at everything we do with new eyes. Meeting together online had all sorts of downsides, but it had many blessings too. It was

Exodus 4:13 But Moses again pleaded: “Lord, please! Send someone else.” I wonder if you can identify with Moses. I certainly can. Time and again God has clearly asked me to do something and, like Moses, I have pleaded with him to find someone else. Moses would quickly have recognised that going back to Egypt was going to be hard enough, let alone to become the leader of his people and negotiate with the mighty Pharaoh. Anyone would have shaken at the knees to have taken on such a role. The reasons that people use for objecting to God’s call are many. Some, like Moses, are overwhelmed by the challenge and feel that their lack of skills makes them a poor choice. Others object to God’s call because they feel that the job they have been offered is beneath them. God calls them to be involved in youth work when they would much rather be in the worship band; or God calls them to do cleaning in the church when they would rather become a leader. What Moses had to learn was that God knew what he was doin

Exodus 4:10 But Moses pleaded with the Lord: “O Lord, I’m not very good with words. I never have been, and I’m not now, even though you have spoken to me. I get tongue-tied, and my words get tangled.” I feel a bit sorry for Moses. I have often heard people suggesting that Moses was just looking for excuses to turn down God’s job offer. However, Moses’ reply to God sounds to me like a perfectly reasonable objection. He clearly had significant problems with speaking and this would, it seems to me, make him a far from ideal candidate for a job that would be all about effective communication. But God was having none of it. He had decided that Moses was the man for the job and no objections, however substantial, were going to cause him to change his mind. When God chooses someone to work for him, he equips them with the ability to do it. In the New Testament we are introduced to Peter who, throughout Jesus’ ministry, consistently blundered with his words. Time and again we wince at his foolishness, and we squi

Exodus 3:15 God also said to Moses: “Say this to the people of Israel: Yahweh, the God of your ancestors—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.” I wonder what you would say if God asked you to lead his people at a time of desperate need. I suspect that you, like Moses, would have a string of questions to ask! The first thing that he needed to know was who was sending him. The people of Israel were bound to ask, and he needed to have a good answer for them. God told him that he should say that “I am” had sent him to them, and then spelt out that this was God’s eternal name and that he was the God of their forefathers. We can be sure that the stories of the great fathers of the Jewish faith would often have been told among the people of Israel, and they needed to know that Moses stood in that line of succession. At the end of Jesus’ earthly ministry, a similar situation occurred. As Jesus sent out his disciples he recognised that they would need to know with what auth

Exodus 3:11–12 But Moses protested to God, “Who am I to appear before Pharaoh? Who am I to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt?” God answered, “I will be with you.” Moses was about 80 years old when God spoke to him from the burning bush. He was in the desert of Midian, on the eastern side of the Red Sea, which is where he had fled to after he had murdered an Egyptian. The idea of returning to Egypt and appearing before Pharaoh must have seemed crazy to him. And, given his upbringing in the royal palace, he hardly had the common touch to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt. It is little wonder, therefore, that Moses questioned God’s decision to appoint him as the people’s leader. When God calls people to serve him, they almost always ask the same question, “Who am I?” I certainly did. I was 18 years old when a man in our church asked me to go and preach in a village church near our home. I was amazed that he thought I would be suitable. It sounded like a terrifying responsibility. What would happen

Exodus 3:4 When the Lord saw Moses coming to take a closer look, God called to him from the middle of the bush, “Moses! Moses!” “Here I am!” Moses replied. Moses’ life was remarkable. He was born in Egypt when the people of Israel were in slavery there, and Pharaoh had gone to extraordinary lengths to kill off all Israelite baby boys. Moses had miraculously survived and was brought up as a member of Pharaoh’s household. Years later he saw one of his own Israelite people being abused and, in his anger, killed the perpetrator. Moses soon recognised that his own life was in danger and so he fled from the country. He got married to Zipporah and in our reading today we find him looking after his father-in-law’s sheep. The life of a shepherd was a tough one. The heat could be intense and Moses continually needed to be alert to the threat from wolves and other wild animals. Much of what happened was familiar and predictable. However, in the midst of his working day he was suddenly aware of a burning bush. That in

Philippians 4:19 And this same God who takes care of me will supply all your needs from his glorious riches, which have been given to us in Christ Jesus. Generosity is a beautiful thing. I had the blessing of a very generous aunt. She never married and was a devoted follower of Jesus. She was generous with her time, especially to neighbours who were in need. Although she held a very senior executive role she was always happy to do the most menial jobs and would think nothing of it. She died in retirement while taking a neighbour to hospital and that seemed to sum up her life. She was always very generous with her money and was always looking for creative ways to help people and planted firmly in my teenage mind the blessing of being generous. Christians are not automatically generous, and the apostle Paul noted that the generosity of the Philippian church stood in marked contrast to that of many others. As he came towards the end of the letter, he thanked them once again for their gifts and described them

Philippians 4:11–13 I have learned how to be content with whatever I have. I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little. For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength. Advertising is a major influence in the modern world. Its deliberate intention is to stir up discontent. We are continually urged to buy newer, trendier, brighter, faster and more efficient products. Being consistently pounded with these messages it can be difficult to live contentedly with what we already have but that must surely be the most desirable life of all. To live with contentment is to live a life without strain and stress. Epicurus, the Greek philosopher, said, “He who doesn’t find a little enough, will find nothing enough.” There is wisdom in this quotation, but Paul wouldn’t have agreed with it. His contentment didn’t flow from a particular philosophical understanding of life but f

Philippians 4:8 And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honourable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Never in history have those words been more important than right now. When Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989 no one could have foreseen that it would completely transform the way in which we access information. Our mobile phones are the gateway to a world of information. This has incalculable benefits, but the downside is undeniable. It has never been easier to view destructive and depraved information. In such a situation we desperately need to hear Paul’s words. We need to become fixated on those things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Paul lived in the real world. He wasn’t inviting the Philippian Christians to hide away from their society. Being a prisoner, Paul, of all people, knew about the dark side of Roman life. He had no illusions about the wo

Philippians 4:6–7 Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. The most unhelpful thing you can say to a person who is worrying is, “Don’t worry”. Even when meant kindly, it can actually increase the problems of the person who’s worrying. Not only have they got all their worries but now they need to feel guilty about it as well. Paul doesn’t fall into the trap of giving useless advice because he shows us the way out. He tells the Philippians that there is no need to worry because they can pray about everything. If you place your concerns in God’s hands then you can look to the future with confidence and thanksgiving. Jesus also recognised that worrying was a significant issue for his followers. He pointed out that it was a waste of time. He asked the question: “Can all your worries ad

Philippians 4:2–3 Now I appeal to Euodia and Syntyche. Please, because you belong to the Lord, settle your disagreement. And I ask you, my true partner, to help these two women, for they worked hard with me in telling others the Good News. There’s nothing new about people falling out with one another! It has been a feature of life from the very beginning, as we learn from the account of Cain and Abel (Genesis 4). The question is: what do we do when it happens? Here, Paul offers some helpful advice. The first step is for those who disagree to seek to resolve their differences. We have no idea what the women disagreed about. It must have been fairly serious for Paul to go to the trouble of referring to it in his letter. He reminded the women that they belonged to the Lord. Belonging to the same family doesn’t mean that disagreements won’t occur, but it does mean that we are not alone in seeking to resolve the situation. We can pray together and seek God’s guidance. Normally, in my experience, if there is a w

Philippians 3:17–18 Dear brothers and sisters, pattern your lives after mine, and learn from those who follow our example. For I have told you often before, and I say it again with tears in my eyes, that there are many whose conduct shows they are really enemies of the cross of Christ. Paul doesn’t pull his punches does he? He tells it like it is! Declaring that some people were enemies of Christ seems very harsh, but he knew that it was essential for the Philippian Christians to know the difference between those who were true followers of Christ and those who were fighting against him. Paul said that he himself was the person they should be following; I don’t interpret this as arrogance but as a matter of necessity. The Christians in Philippi, most of whom would have been very young in their faith, needed to have a clear example of what it meant to live for Christ in everyday life. As Paul wrote this, he was in prison so he invited them to pattern their lives on those who had followed his example. This all

Philippians 3:12 I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. Perfection is a word that makes most of us shudder because we are so well aware that we fall very far short of it. But the danger with that kind of response is that we give up even trying. We accept, reluctantly, that we are the people that we are, and everybody else has just got to get used to it. I’ve heard people say that they have a bad temper because that’s exactly how their father used to be. Or they blame their impatience on their bad back. Paul fully acknowledged that he had a long way to go on the road to perfection, but he was determined to travel further on that journey and not to excuse his shortcomings. Wonderfully, God accepts us just the way we are, but he loves us so much that he doesn’t want us to stay as we are. He longs that we should change and take steps forward towards perfection.

Philippians 3:8–9 Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ and become one with him. Oscar Wilde once defined a cynic as the person “who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing”. His observation well describes our cynical society today. It often takes a serious illness or an accident for people to start looking hard at what is most valuable in life. Here the apostle Paul was running through this exercise for himself. His detractors said that what mattered most was obeying the Jewish law and his answer was that if they wanted to play that game then he was the runaway winner. He was circumcised on the eighth day of his life as every little Jewish boy should be. He came from the favoured tribe of Benjamin so he was, as he described himself, “a real Hebrew if ever there was one” (v5)! He was also trained as a Pharisee and was so comm

Philippians 3:1–2 Whatever happens, my dear brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord. I never get tired of telling you these things, and I do it to safeguard your faith. Watch out for those dogs, those people who do evil, those mutilators who say you must be circumcised to be saved. There is something incredibly impressive about people who are joyful when everything is going wrong. Paul’s list of problems was a long one. He had the indignity and discomfort of being in prison, not knowing whether he would ever be let out. Many of his fellow workers had let him down and he was continually up against fierce opposition. The sharpness of the conflict is very clear in these words as he describes his opponents as dogs. Their insistence that male converts to Christianity should be circumcised was, for Paul, a denial of the message that he was proclaiming. He was convinced that salvation comes by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and that circumcision was definitely not necessary, let alone essential. Paul’s joyfulne

Philippians 2:22–23 But you know how Timothy has proved himself. Like a son with his father, he has served with me in preaching the Good News. I hope to send him to you just as soon as I find out what is going to happen to me here. Timothy was clearly very important to Paul. Born at Lystra in Galatia (now part of Turkey) Timothy had a Jewish mother and a Greek father. Paul met him on his second missionary journey and he was a regular companion from then onwards. The letter to the Philippians was one of six letters in which Timothy was named as the co-author with Paul, and the apostle also wrote two deeply personal and moving letters specifically to Timothy whom he referred to as his dear son. In Philippians, Paul stated that he had no one else like him. Everyone else looked after their own interests, but not Timothy. He could be relied upon as a man of faith and someone who genuinely cared. As Paul languished in prison it must have been wonderful for him to know that he had Timothy’s continual support. Pa

Philippians 2:14–15 Do everything without complaining and arguing, so that no one can criticise you. Live clean, innocent lives as children of God, shining like bright lights in a world full of crooked and perverse people. We probably all complain from time to time, but as a way of life it can be very destructive. It has been wisely said that complaining doesn’t solve problems, it only attracts them. Complaints were clearly a feature of the church in Philippi and Paul was eager that they should stop. His comments remind us of the people of Israel during their 40 years in the wilderness. Even though they had observed God miraculously leading them out of slavery in Egypt it wasn’t long before the complaints began. Paul challenged his readers to live in such a way that they couldn’t be criticised, because that could only damage their Christian witness. He had no illusions about how hard this would be. His description of the world being full of crooked and perverse people was clearly based on his own per

Philippians 2:12–13 Dear friends, you always followed my instructions when I was with you. And now that I am away, it is even more important. Work hard to show the results of your salvation, obeying God with deep reverence and fear. For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him. If you have given your life to Christ, confessed your sins and received his forgiveness then you have the gift of salvation. This is the amazing good news that Paul was so desperate to share. But he was equally concerned that his readers should understand that they now had work to do. The situation is much the same as in marriage. Getting married is just the start of the journey. Advertising always reveals a great deal about a society. These days we often hear products being promoted because they will offer us a quick and effortless route to making life easier, smoother, happier and more fulfilled. It’s very tempting to speak of the Christian life in the same way. But it would be a lie.

Philippians 2:5–7 You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had. Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. These amazing words form the beginning of what many people consider to be a first-century hymn. They beautifully express the fundamental truth that God’s desire is to turn our thinking upside down. Our natural inclination is to seek power, prestige and recognition but Jesus came to this earth and did precisely the opposite. And that, said Paul, was the attitude the Philippians needed to have towards one another. He wanted to see them ditch all traces of arrogance and to consider others better than themselves. It’s all very challenging. The humility of Jesus is truly astonishing. He, above everyone else, was entitled to have power and influence and to enjoy a life of ease and comfort but he gladly accepted the opposite. He was willing to

Philippians 2:1–2 Is there any encouragement from belonging to Christ? Any comfort from his love? Any fellowship together in the Spirit? Are your hearts tender and compassionate? Then make me truly happy by agreeing wholeheartedly with each other, loving one another, and working together with one mind and purpose. One of the biggest problems with unity is that it looks so easy. If you listen to a fine orchestra playing harmoniously or watch a top Premier League Football team playing with skill and precision, it all looks so very straightforward. Surely anyone could do it! But I then recall the hours that I spent in our school orchestra and those regular Saturday afternoons when I played football, and I can assure you that unity doesn’t come easily. Paul was equally clear about this. He knew that the Philippian Christians had received the gift of unity in Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. But they still needed to work incredibly hard to ensure that their lives reflected that unity. In th