“Just As I Am” – Acts 7:22-25; Exodus 4:10-13; 33:11-13

Every one of us has strengths and weaknesses. We tend to play down our strengths while emphasizing our weaknesses. Why this is, I’m not sure. I believe it has elements of being told when we were young not to brag about ourselves. Very few people toot their own horns, so to speak, and when they do, it seems to rub many of us the wrong way.

Still, we do have strengths and weaknesses. When we are invited to do something that plays to our strengths, we are more likely to readily jump in with both feet. If we are asked to do something that plays to our weakness, we are reluctant to join in, though we will if we are coaxed into it.

The hymns of our youth speak to our hearts, bringing us into the presence of the Lord in a way that encourages us, challenges us, convicts us. The hymn, “Just As I Am,” is one such hymn. It tells us that we can approach God without guile, without façade. We don’t have to earn His acceptance (we can’t even though we often think we must); we can and must come to Him just as we are.

Today, we take three examples from the life of one man and see three of the different ways we can come to God.

Background

The hymn, “Just As I Am,” was written by Charlotte Elliott in 1835. According to Wikipedia, there are at least five tunes that can be used to sing Ms. Elliott’s words.

The history of the hymn tells us that Ms. Elliott’s brother, Rev. H.V. Elliott was planning to hold a bizarre to raise funds to help put ministers’ daughter through college. On the night before the bizarre, Ms. Elliott could not get to sleep. She was overcome with a sense of uselessness, which quickly turned into a distress of her spirit. She began to question not just her overall unworthiness, but her spiritual relationship with God. She questioned whether salvation was factual or whether it was an illusion to soothe our emotions.

The next morning, she was still troubled by the thoughts that had troubled her through the night. She was so overwhelmed by the doubts and emotions that she determined to confront it head on. According to John Brownie, who was writing about the hymn, “She gathered up in her soul the great certainties, not of her emotions, but of her salvation: her Lord, His power, His promise.”

She began to write down her confidence in God. Her usual way of writing was through poetry. She wrote words of assurance and hope. As she wrote, she found comfort in the assurance that God takes us as we are, and that He makes us worthy, He makes us useful.

The hymn has been sung to bring that same assurance to each sinner saved by grace or seeking to find that salvation.

When we look at the men and women in the Bible, one of the greatest men of the Bible is Moses. God used him in a great and mighty way to demonstrate God’s power, God’s grace and God’s expectations. Yet, when we look at the life of Moses, we see a man in conflict with himself and with God. We see a man who truly set the stage for “Just As I Am.”

Looking at Moses’ life, we see three times where he came to God. In each instance, he brought with him an attitude that generally reflects our attitudes before God.

Central Truth: We must come to God with humility.

We can come to God with:

1. Cockiness (Acts 7:22-25)

“Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in speech and action. When Moses was forty years old, he decided to visit his fellow Israelites. He saw one of them being mistreated by an Egyptian, so he went to his defense and avenged him by killing the Egyptian. Moses thought that his own people would realize that God was using him to rescue them, but they did not.”

From the time Moses was old enough to understand, he had probably been told that God was going to use him in a mighty way. He was born at a time when Pharaoh had ordered all newborn Hebrew boys to be cast into the Nile, lest the Jewish people grow in numbers such as to become a threat to the Egyptian people. Moses had been spared, though, when his mother cleverly created a basket for him to float down the river. I believe Moses’ mother had planned her maneuver cleverly, setting the basket with the boy slightly upstream from where she knew Pharaoh’s daughter bathed regularly. Moses’ sister, Miriam, hid in the reeds on the bank, and, when Pharaoh’s daughter had the basket fetched to her, Miriam volunteered to find a Hebrew woman to help raise the child.

From that time on, it is very reasonable to accept that Moses’ mother spent her days teaching her younger son that he was special in the eyes of God, and that God would use him to one day set his people free.

Most of Moses’ story is told in Exodus through Deuteronomy, but we find an interesting testimony of Moses in Acts 7. The scene is the deacon, Stephen, standing on trial before the Sanhedrin, the same group that had condemned Jesus to death. In giving his testimony, Stephen began with a recitation of the history of Israel. When it came time for the history of Moses, Stephen testified in the words found in today’s passage.

Notice that Moses was a man who was well-educated. He was also somewhat of an orator—“powerful in speech.” He was also someone who could act decisively when needed. The picture I always see when I read these words is a man among men. He comes across as the person that people always wanted to follow. He could communicate his position well and he could act in a way that all but guaranteed success wherever he went and in whatever he did.

It was with this confidence that Moses came to God and said, “Here I am. You’ve prepared me for this great task, and You picked the right guy. I will set Your people free.” The problem with Moses’ attitude is that he came to God with a hubris that cannot and will not be used by God. Moses’ attitude was one that would focus on Moses, not on God.

Moses acted with the assumption that he was God’s man to do the task. He was correct in his thinking, but not in the timing or the attitude. He assumed that, because a man powerful in speech and in action, that the people would just naturally recognize he was their savior.

The problem with Moses’ thinking, though, is that he failed to recognize the resentment that would have built up around him. Many of the Israelites he sought to lead where people who had lost brothers and sons to the river. They were living in slavery to the Egyptians, while Moses was treated as an Egyptian. Moses may have seen himself as Israel’s savior, but Israel saw Moses as someone who had turned his back on his people and their suffering.

Moses, because of his self-assurance, came to God on his own terms, not God’s. He came with a confidence that seemed to suggest Moses could do God’s work with only a modicum of help from God.

God cannot and does not use the boastful. He looks down on the pride that builds one’s self up and fails to see the great need for God’s grace, mercy and salvation. Moses was so confident in himself that he presumed to tell God the time and the way to save Israel. God had other plans.

Sometimes, we come to God with a confidence that seems to indicate we can do the job without much input from God. We do all the work, wrap it up in a gift package and say to God, “See what I did for You? Put the ribbon on the package, and we’ll say it’s from You.”

God doesn’t want us to do the work for Him. He wants to work through us. Self-assurance is not the way to come to God.

2. A sense of unworthiness (Ex. 4:10-13)

“Moses said to the Lord, ‘O Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since You have spoken to Your servant. I am slow in speech and tongue.’ The Lord said to him, ‘Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is is not I, the Lord? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.’ But Moses said, “O Lord, please send someone else to do it.”

When Israel rejected Moses, he fled into the wilderness. He rescued some women who were being harassed at the watering trough, and his reward was to marry one of the women and live his father-in-law. For the next 40 years of his life, Moses had nothing of his own. His existence was tending to his father-in-law’s flocks and living in his father-in-law’s home.

The Bible is silent about Moses during these 40 long years of darkness. I believe it was a time when Moses spent many an hour alone in the wilderness, mulling over what was and what might have been. He must have wondered how it all went wrong, and began to blame himself and probably questions God and himself until he no longer saw himself as anything more than an abject failure. From the palaces of Egypt to the tents of some nomad people.

So it was that Moses saw a bush burning in the distance. Fire in such a dry land can be disastrous, so Moses went to investigate. As he drew nearer, he noticed that the fire was not spreading, nor was the flame consuming the bush. As he came close, God spoke to Moses through the bush. God’s words were that God was ready to use Moses to do what Moses always knew he was born to do: Set Israel free from slavery and return to the Promised Land.

This man, who was powerful in speech and in action, told God He had the wrong man. Repeatedly, Moses threw up excuse after excuse. As God would overcome the first excuse, Moses raised a new one. Finally, Moses decided to play his last card, his most powerful card.

“O Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since You have spoken with Your servant.”

I am not prepared to say Moses was lying to God. I believe Moses had beaten himself up so much in the last 40 years that he probably believed he wasn’t a man of eloquence or powerful speech. Probably the last time Moses tried to give a speech was when Israel turned their back on him. I believe Moses was very sincere in his words. I believe Moses truly felt himself to be unable to be used by God in any way or sense.

Like Moses, there are times in our lives we come to God and tell Him we are not worthy of His favor or His grace. We come to Him and tell Him that we can’t do something, that it’s beyond our skills, our abilities. To even suggest something otherwise fills us with dread and fear. We are convinced that asking us to do something the Lord calls us to do is doomed to absolute failure.

We come to God at such a time and beg Him to find someone else. But notice this about Moses, and about ourselves.

Even though Moses thought he was useless, God knew better. God told Moses to do what God told him to do, and God would use Moses to bring Israel out of slavery. Moses, despite his misgivings and self-doubt, agreed to follow God, and the result was exactly what God said would happen. Moses stood up to Pharaoh, and God set His people free.

The point is that, even if you or I feel we are woefully inadequate to be used by God, God can still great things through us. We simply take one step forward in faith, then another and another. Each step is a greater step of faith. Until one day, our faith is strong, and God is glorified through us.

3. A sense of genuine humility (Ex. 33:11-13)

“The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend. . . . Moses said to the Lord, ‘Lead these people; but you have not let me know whom You will send with me. You have said, “I know you by name and you have found favor with Me.” If you are pleased with me, teach me Your ways, so I may know You and continue to find favor with You. Remember that this nation is Your people.”

This passage takes place right after God has given the people the 10 Commandments. Moses has been on the mountaintop for 40 days and nights. The people got restless, thinking that something had happened to Moses. They told Aaron to build them an idol so they could worship. Aaron had done so, and God had sent Moses down the mountain to get things in order. God planned to destroy them, but Moses intervened and God relented. However, the next day, God informed Moses that the people would be allowed to enter the Promised Land, only God would no longer lead them. He would send an angel instead. This passage is Moses interceding with God to once again relent and guide His people.

Notice the relationship between God and Moses. It is speaking as between friends. A far cry from the moments at the burning bush. Moses had seen God demonstrate His might in the freeing of the people. He had seen God’s power at the Red Sea, and had witnessed God’s kindness in providing water and food for them as they journeyed to Sinai. Being described as one who was like a friend to God would imply that the relationship had grown close over the months since the burning bush.

As Moses intervenes, notice his words. “If You are pleased with me, teach me Your ways.” No longer was Moses the haughty man who assumed to know God’s will. No longer is Moses the one who thought himself unworthy or incapable of doing God’s will. Now, his only goal is to know God more deeply, to continue to grow in Him. That’s the reason for his request: “. . . so that I may know You and continue to find favor with You.”

The way God wants us to come to Him is with this attitude. We come initially keenly aware of our sinfulness. If we will follow Him, though, we will get to know Him better, and in getting to know Him better, we will hunger for more knowledge. That’s why Jesus says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they will be filled” (Matthew 5:6).

Because Moses came to God in this manner, God was able to continue to use Moses. God agreed to continue to lead the people to the Promised Land. Yes, there were sufferings and judgments as a result of the golden calf incident, but God would continue to be their guide.

Our attitude must be like Moses in this instance. As we grow in our faith, we come to see God in a new light, and we become more aware of how much we still need to grow. We no longer came with a sense of unworthiness, because Jesus has made us worthy. We no longer come with a sense of uselessness, because the Holy Spirit is shaping us to become more like Christ each day. We come as a student to a teacher, seeking more knowledge in order to continue in our knowledge in Him and the growth of our faith.

Conclusion

When Jesus was walking with Peter by the lake after His resurrection, Jesus asked the guilt-ridden apostle three times if Peter loved Him. Jesus’ first question was, “Do you agape Me more than these?” The second time, Jesus asked, “Do you agape Me?” In both instances, Peter replied with the less lofty word for love and said, “I phileo You.” “Agape” is a Christ-like love; “phileo” is a brotherly love. The third time, Jesus asked, “Peter, do you phileo Me?” The apostle had to be stricken both by the number of questions and the lessening degree of love. Jesus took Peter at the phileo level because the Savior understood that Peter was coming to Him just as he was, and Jesus could do something with that.

When we come to Jesus, we need to come to Him with a humble spirit, an open spirit. It doesn’t have to be a willing spirit or a confident spirit—Moses at the bush is evidence of that. But God used that Moses, while He let the overconfident Moses fail.

Come to Jesus just as you are. He can and will change you into what He wants you to be.