God Is Calling You — Will You Answer? What Moses Teaches About God's Call (Exodus 3–4)

After you finish reading this sentence, more than a million phone calls will be placed around the world. Today alone, there will be over 13.5 billion of them. And every one of them comes down to a decision on the other end.

Think about what you do when your phone rings. You look at the screen to see who it is. Most of the time you hit the green button and pick up. Sometimes you decline it and let it roll to voicemail. Sometimes you fire back a text — “in a meeting, talk later” — like you're too important to answer. And every once in a while, you just block the caller altogether.

Here's the whole message in one sentence: God is calling you. The God of the universe is calling you. That part isn't really in question — Scripture says He calls every single person. The question is the one you face with any call. What's your response? Do you pick up and say, “I'm available”? Do you decline it? Do you text back, “not right now, God”? Or have you blocked the call completely?

Somebody, nobody, anybody

The best picture of how to answer is a man you've heard of: Moses. God used him to lead millions of people out of slavery in Egypt to the edge of the Promised Land. And you can outline his whole life in three 40-year acts.

For the first forty years, Moses was a somebody. A Hebrew adopted into Pharaoh's household through a supernatural turn of events, raised with the best education, the best training, military tactics, leadership, the works. People said he'd probably be the next Pharaoh. You know you've made it when that's the talk of the town in Egypt.

Then he blew it. He saw an Egyptian abusing one of his fellow Hebrews, killed the man, and buried him in the sand — until the toes started sticking out. It could be a Netflix documentary. Moses got found out, and God's man went from famous to fugitive, from the palace to the pasture. For the next forty years he was a nobody, herding his father-in-law's sheep in the desert.

And then came the last forty years, where God showed the whole point: He can use anybody. That's you. That's me.

The desert wasn't wasted

Here's what I love. When Moses finally led Israel out of Egypt, he led them through the very same desert he'd been stuck in for forty years. He knew that wilderness like the back of his hand — where the rattlesnake dens were, where the hyenas hung out, where the watering holes were. And how was he able to march into Pharaoh's office and say “let my people go”? Because he'd grown up learning Egypt's laws, its loopholes, its power players.

Nothing was wasted. God had used every bit of Moses' background — the good, the bad, and the ugly — to prepare him for exactly what He'd prepared for him. He does the same with you. God didn't cause the bad things; we live in a fallen world. But He will use everything in your story to get you ready for your calling. Which means those two things are always true at once: God is calling you, and God has already equipped you for the call.

Common ground becomes holy ground

One ordinary day on a trail he'd walked a thousand times, something caught Moses' attention — a bush on fire that wasn't burning up. He went over to investigate, and God called to him from inside it: “Moses, Moses.”

That's how God usually works. He takes the ordinary and speaks through it in extraordinary ways. He takes common ground and makes it holy ground. So the question for you is: what ordinary thing is God using right now to get your attention? It's rarely a lightning bolt. It's usually the everyday.

Then God told him, “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” Holy ground is just ordinary ground invaded by an extraordinary God. The ground itself isn't special — it's the presence of God that makes it holy. And here's the encouragement: as a believer, wherever you walk, you carry that presence. Your workplace, your kitchen, your car, the room you're in right now — holy ground, because where two or more are gathered, He's there.

God draws straight lines with crooked sticks. I'm a crooked stick. So are you. So was Moses — he didn't have it all together, which is exactly the point.

The excuses (or, how to overtalk God)

The funny thing is that God called Moses, and Moses spent two entire chapters trying to get off the phone. You know overtalkers — the people you can't get out of a conversation with, who don't even realize they're doing it? That was Moses, evading God with excuse after excuse:

• Who am I? (Exodus 3:11) — which was the wrong question. The right one was, “Who are You, God?”
• What if they don't believe me? (Exodus 4:1) — pure scenario sickness, borrowing tomorrow's trouble.
• I've never been eloquent. I'm slow of speech. (Exodus 4:10)
• And finally, Please, just send someone else. (Exodus 4:13)

God let him talk. Sometimes you have to let the overtalker run out of steam. And then came the answer that is really the whole sermon — Exodus 4:12: “I will be with you.” Yeah, but God — I'll be with you.

Because here's the thing: God isn't looking at your ability. He's looking at your availability. He'll supply the ability. When God first said “Moses, Moses,” the right response was the one Moses eventually came to — the two words that are all any of us really have: “Here I am.”

“Everything in me said run”

I know this one personally. When I felt called to pastor my own church, I was on staff at the largest, most stable church in America, where my father pastored. I told all my friends there was one place I would never go: Dallas-Fort Worth. Too many preachers, too many seminaries, too many big-steeple-few-people churches. I wanted Southern California, South Florida, maybe Canada. Never say that to God — He has a sense of humor.

Long story short, thirty families in a rented office in a dead part of Irving asked Lisa and me to come. When I walked in the door and looked around, everything in me said, get out, run, you don't want this. Everything. But underneath it I heard a still, small voice — not audible, but somehow better than audible — saying, stay with me. I've called you here. If it weren't for a handful of faithful families in that room, I'd have bolted. We said yes with a whole lot of holy tension. And I still wake up and pinch myself at what God has done. I don't have the ability. But every morning I try to say, “God, here I am. I'm available.”

What you're actually called to

Before you're ever called to be a teacher, a coach, a truck driver, a surgeon, or a pastor, you're called to three things:

1. Reach up — love God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and worship Him with your whole life (Matthew 22:37–39).
2. Reach out — go and make disciples, and influence others for God's glory (Matthew 28:19). It's the Great Commission, not the Great Omission.
3. Reach in — keep growing into a mature follower of Christ.

This transcends your job title. Single parent or billionaire, struggling or thriving — the call is the same, and it comes first.

So God is calling. What's your response? Are you going to pick up? Decline it? Text back “later, once I get my life together”? Some people have blocked the call entirely. Don't send God to voicemail. Just answer the way Moses finally did, the way I try to every morning: “Here I am.”