Caught In Between | Week 1 (7-12-2026)

Dr. Woods Lisenby preaches on the subject, "Raise Your Head Up."

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Transcript

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Now Moses was tending the flock of his Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that the bush was on fire, but it did not burn up. So Moses thought, I will go over and see this strange sight, why the bush does not burn up. When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, Moses, Moses. And Moses said, Here I am. Do not come any closer, God said. Take off your sandals, for the place where you're standing is holy ground. Then he said, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. At this Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look at God. The Lord said, I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I've heard them crying out of their uh I've heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I'm concerned about their suffering. So I've come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land, into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey, and home to the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebuzites. And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. So now go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt. But Moses said to God, Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt? And God said, I will be with you, and this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you. When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain. Moses said to God, Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, The God of your fathers has sent me to you, and they ask me, What is his name? Then what shall I tell them? God said to Moses, I am who I am. That is what you are to say to the Israelites. I am has sent me to you. This is the word of God for us, the people of God, and together we say, Thanks be to God. You may be seated. Andy, I thought when I said that my my sermon was a little bit shorter, we got out, you're gonna get like three, four, five songs. I was I was surprised, man. I I was trying to give you the space, you know, explore the space. I did, I do owe a little apology. I got to Brianna my in-I don't know if she's watching it or not online or if this was just coincidence, but she did, I got a message that said, because it's raining, um, all my in-laws are inside right now cutting out stuff for the VBS that we're doing on our mission trip down in Costa Rica. So now I feel all guilty, right? Like not rushing back. So, you know, in two weeks, Brianna is one of the leader for our mission trip down to Costa Rica. And I guess they're all sitting around cutting out stuff for the VBS. So look at that. The Catholics helping the Methodists out. Thank y'all. The line in laws, y'all are watching, love you. Will you pray with me? Lord, may the words of my mouth and meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our deemer. We thank you for your word. May there always be a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And all God's people said, Amen. I'm not sure if you can relate, and I'm sure I bet some of you can, but maybe not everybody. But I'm really good at saying, yeah, yes, without having heard a word that was said before. Right? Somebody asking a question or telling me something, and I'm just like, yeah, uh-huh, but like not really paying attention. My wife will tell you it's one of my least favorable qualities. Um, she'll say something to me like, Hey, would you mind stopping by the grocery store and picking up whatever on your way home? And I was like, Yeah. But I like I totally wasn't fully engaged, listening, paying attention. I'll get home that night and she goes, Hey, did you pick up whatever? And I was like, Uh, did you ask me to go to the grocery store? And it, this is not like a one-time event. This is a pretty regular occurrence. And it happens in a lot of places in my life. Like uh at work not too long ago. I I have we have here the greatest staff. I love the people I work with. I trust them all implicitly, so much so that when they turn in a PTO form for me to sign for their time off, like I never read it. I just trust them, you know. Like I probably should read it. It'll be the better supervisory thing for me to do to be aware of when people are gonna be here or not. I just show up and whoever's here is here. That's great. And so uh the other day I was talking with Pastor Sarah, and I said, So what are you preaching on for 4th of July? And she looked at me and she was like kind of questioning. I guess she thought I was joking. She's like, ha ha ha ha. I was like, no, seriously, what are you preaching on? Because if you don't know, Fourth of July, like Memorial Day, Labor Day, the Sunday between Christmas and New Year's and around here, Joe Kane Day, we call those associate pastor Sundays. And so I'm just assuming she's gonna preach on July 4th. And she goes, uh, and she got a little nervous. I felt bad. She goes, uh, I I swear I turned into PTO form. You said yeah. And I was like, uh, yeah, I'm sure I probably did. And and the worst though is it happens with my kids sometimes. I'm a little guilty, I feel a little guilty admitting this. Um, but the other day, uh Bradshaw, my my middle child, our our almost six-year-old, he was uh standing just like feet away from me, saying, Hey Dad, Dad, watch this, dad, watch this, dad, watch this. And and he said, Dad, are you watching? And I'm like, Yeah. But I was completely not, I was focused on something else. And uh he he did this something another, and and he said, Dad, wasn't that awesome? And I was like, Yeah, I was so enthusiastic. That was so awesome, dude. I was and and he knew immediately that I was not paying attention. And so he took his hands, went on both sides of my face, and he turned like a to make sure I was watching. And then he did something completely dangerous that he should not have been doing. And I was like, Oh, I should probably pay attention to things like this. And this wasn't when he did the backflip and like had to get the sti the staples two weeks ago. That was completely different. This is him doing something else dangerous, which is just kind of par for the course in our household. Uh I was convicted about this in preparing for these sermons, about uh this idea of missing what's right in front of you. This idea uh the fact that we we often give our attention to other things than that which is most readily available. Like sometimes even a five-year-old knows that I can make all the right sounds in the world, but still not actually be paying attention. Uh, what I learned, he doesn't want my yeah. He wants my eyes. He can tell the difference between a dad who uh answers and a dad who actually turns and watches. And I've been thinking about this tendency a lot lately because uh I think this is exactly what the scripture we read, the burning bush, it hinges on this idea about acknowledging something without really paying attention. It gives us an example of what it looks like to actually turn, to raise our head up and look. Because this morning we're starting a new series called Caught in Between. And for the next four weeks, we're gonna journey through and walk alongside Moses, and we're gonna learn about the life of Moses. And years ago, when I was in my doctoral work, I read this book called Moses and the Journey of Leadership by a rabbi named Norman Cohen. And Moses is one of the pivotal characters in the Old Testament, uh, he's a giant in the Hebrew Bible, the first half of our Bible, it's actually more than half, but in the Old Testament. And Cohen reads the same, there is a story the same ways that the ancient rabbis used to read these stories. And he pulls from interpretations in the Midrash and the Talmud to help give his understanding of who Moses is. And if you've never heard of those books, the Midrash, the Talmud, uh, they're the best way to cut the most akin to like a biblical commentary, but like a more holy version of it, something that's been passed down from generations of Jewish people. They record how different rabbis would interpret the Old Testament. They're interpreting it for them, the Bible. Um, and uh Cohen pulls from this tradition and he shows in his book how Moses is not some grand human that is so different from the rest of us. He helps us realize uh the times where Moses is reluctant and nervous, the times where he's a whole lot more like us than we might expect. Uh, Moses spends most of his life caught in between, caught between a couple different things. He's caught between God, who's calling him to something greater, and the quiet life of comfort that he has come to know. He's caught between the people who are complaining and the God who is often silent. Uh, he, this is why we're calling the series caught in between, because he spends most of his life caught in between things, just like a lot of us actually do. There's a lot of times in our life where we are caught between two different places, two different things that are pulling us in different directions. And for Moses, it all starts here in Exodus chapter three, with a shepherd, a flock, and a bush that would not stop burning. Moses is out on the edge of the wilderness. He's got uh his father-in-law, Jethro's sheep that he's tending to. It is literally the most ordinary thing about his life. It is a completely ordinary day where he's just doing his job. And the text says that an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire on a bush, and the bush was blazing but was not burning up. There's no ash, no smoke, just fire that kept on going. And Moses stops and he turns aside to look. Like, hey, I mean, I'm sure hopefully we would all be like, what is going on? He goes over, what's going on over here? But next, watch watch what happens. When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush. And I love this fact that God doesn't speak right when the bush burns up, or right whenever it lights up, right? He's he doesn't yell, hey Moses, look over here at how cool this thing is. God speaks when Moses turns aside and pays attention. The fire was already burning for who long, for how long, who knows? But apparently heaven was waiting for somebody to turn, to stop, to raise their head to pay attention. We call this uh story a miracle because it is, right? We don't often see bushes that that are on fire, they don't burn up. But I think it's also kind of a miracle that this regular guy on an ordinary day doing his ordinary job stop long enough to pay attention to something, to notice something out of the ordinary. And here's the part that makes Moses so easy to love, such a relatable character. Uh, having finally gotten him to look up, God lays out the plan for him, right? He's like, You're gonna go to Pharaoh in Egypt, and you're gonna tell him, let all of his let all my people go. All right. And and God lays out the plan, and Moses is like, uh, nah, I'm good. I mean, it is. He gives him five excuses about why he cannot be the person that God needs to do this job, right? He's giving him all these reasons, right? He starts by saying, uh, well, who am I that I should go to Pharaoh? And then it's like, like, well, uh, what if they ask me what your name is? What am I supposed to tell them then? And then and then he says, Well, well, what if what if they don't believe me? And then Moses says, Oh, well, you know, I'm not very good at talking. I I'm slow to speak, you know. Uh, and then finally, at the end of it all, this is my favorite part. Uh, he just says, plain, I don't want to. God, will you just please send somebody else? I gotta tell you that that might be one of the most relatable things in the entire Bible. God calls an ordinary person on an ordinary day to do something uncomfortable, and he tries all he can to get out of it. I I think a lot of us are people who who live our lives, who go through our days with our heads down. You know, I I told you I sometimes I overlook what my kids are saying, but I can also drive from here to Costco or anywhere else. And like, you know how you get in the car one moment and the next moment you're already there? Like nothing happened in the drive between here and there because you didn't notice anything around you, your mind was focused elsewhere. You're like, how did I get here? Did I drive through a red light? I don't remember. I might have, right? I hope I didn't. I'm not, I'm gonna be honest. I I'm a I'm a really I'm a pretty safe driver. I'm just not a very good driver. So I had like a lot of curbs and stuff like that. So I do try to pay attention, but you had those days where all of a sudden you're just like, I was I was three problems down the road in my mind. I wasn't looking at what was going on right around me. We spend an enormous amount of our time on autopilot, right? We are moving so fast, we're only half here, half the time. And and I wonder how many bushes were burning alongside the road or in our everyday life that we miss because we're so focused elsewhere. I mean, uh, how often have you missed the person in front of you in line that you could tell was struggling? How often uh have you uh felt the nudge to make that phone call that you just decided was somebody, uh I'll get to that some other time. Maybe somebody else will do that for me. I mean, what what about that that feeling you get in the middle of a conversation? That you're like, I should ask another question, I should follow up. But then your phone buzzes, you get distracted, and you never do. The whole question that this story puts in front of us is in our ordinary lives, when God shows up, whether it's in the middle of our work day or just uh on our on our morning commute, are we gonna turn aside and look? Are we gonna pay attention? But but there's two parts of this. And and I would say uh in this problem, there's more than just the distractions. There's a there's a raising the head up, but then uh there are something times where where we do notice, where we do take the time to look up and to see. But there's other times where we see the bush burning and we decide I don't think that's for me today. Or we we feel the call that God has let on our life and we know that it's good, we know that God is nudging us, but but we look away on purpose, right? It's like when you get a text message from somebody and you know you should respond, you know, but you end up leaving that person on red. Do you know this is a term now? I'm cool now because I'm I'm hip and I know these things. Um, don't don't laugh at me. I see y'all. But when uh when you get a text message, if you have your read receipts on and somebody can see that you've read the message and you haven't responded, you're leaving that person on read. And it's rude. You should not do that. Or what's what's just as bad is is where you start texting back a little bit and the three dots pop up for the other person. I think that's called dotted. If it's not, can we start that? I dotted that person, it means I started texting and I didn't ever finish it. I do that a lot. I'm really bad about failing to respond, like accidentally ghosting people. It's kind of a specialty of mine. If I've done that to you, I apologize. But but I do think that's sometimes what we do with God, right? God gives us a message, God gives us some sort of word, some sort of burning bush, even. And then we're like, you know what? I don't I don't think I'm gonna pray today because it's gonna remind me of that thing that God wants me to do. We start interacting less with the things that are gonna draw us back to that memory or back to that reality. We we leave God on read. We ghost God. Uh, but but listen to how God handles a reluctant Moses because it's honestly the best news this whole passage. Moses throws up five objections, and here's what I love God does not strike him down for a single one of them. Really? I mean, seriously. There's no, there's no like, how dare you question me? There's no like fire from heaven, right? The fire's already in the bush. It doesn't have to come down from heaven. There's no like, I'm gonna smite you because you didn't listen to what I said. When Moses says, Who am I, God? God says back, it doesn't matter who you are. He didn't give him like this false flattery, like, oh, you're so great, Moses, you can do it. No, he goes, I'm gonna be with you. So what's the deal? And then Moses like, okay, well, well, what if uh they asked me who you are? God gives this kind of like strange but enormously powerful answer that we don't have time to go fully into today, but I could preach a whole sermon about. And God says, I am who I am. Just tell them I am saying you. And then when Moses says, Well, what if they don't believe me? Uh, you got to read on, this is in chapter four. But God tells them, Hey, uh, what's that in your hand? And Moses says, It's a staff. And God tells Moses, throw your staff on the ground, and he does, and it turns into a snake. That's where I'm out, by the way. Like, I love God, I love Jesus a lot. But God's like, Hey, you need to pick up that snake. I need a lot more convincing. But what does he do? Moses bends down, he picks up the snake, and it turns back into his staff. He takes his ordinary daily equipment, the thing that the most ordinary thing Moses has with him every day, and he turns it into a tool to use for God's purposes. And so then Moses says, Well, I I can't talk very well, I'm not eloquent, I'm slow of speech. And God says, Well, I'll teach you what to say, I'll give you the words. And then finally, Moses is just like, God, I just don't want to do it. Please send somebody else. And this is what the text actually says, and the Lord's anger burned against him. For the first time, the Lord's like, All right, I'm getting tired of this. He's not thrilled. But God even still, He doesn't clap back at him him in some sort of like uh mighty, powerful way that ends Moses. No, what's he do? He says, Hey, didn't you know that Aaron, your brother, is already on the road to meet you? And he happens to speak very well. God never lets Moses off the hook. But also, God never stops listening to Moses. I love that. I love that every objection has a real answer, and that the answer is almost some version of the same thing. It's I will be with you. I've already put what you need in your hands. I'm not going anywhere, I'll be there. I think the best thing I can say to all of us today is that those of us in with our heads down and with our read receipts turned off so that nobody knows, God is already at work in your life. Before you even knew it. This is in the Methodist church we call this provenient grace. And I talk about this a lot because it matters so much. It doesn't depend on you. God is already doing things before you deserve it, before you're worthy, before you prove yourself. God is already calling you. God has already got that bush burning before you turn your head to look. God is already doing great things for you and drawing you in. It's the work of God, the grace of God, that goes before us before we've ever even heard the good news. The bush is burning, and then Moses noticed it. God is ahead of you, and so whatever that nudge you are feeling from time to time, whatever is right outside the corner of your vision that you've been not trying to look at, understand like you didn't start that fire, grace did. But when you turn to look at it, when you acknowledge what is there, what God is doing in your life, everything can change. Your job was never to manufacture your calling, your job is just to raise your head up and then to listen, to look up, to pay attention to what God is doing. And I want to be clear, when I say that the term calling, uh, I often think uh I hear from other people uh these two wrong readings, these two wrong understandings of what I mean by calling. The first is this um I'm not talking to somebody else. Everybody's saying, oh, he's talking about somebody being called. That must be that person right there. Y'all are looking around, ooh, who's the called person in here? The good news, all of us are called. Called to something, so it's sometimes called to multiple things throughout our lives. Maybe it's to a move, maybe it's to a job, maybe it's to a person, maybe it's to reconciliation, maybe it's to whatever. But God is constantly calling us and inviting us, giving us opportunities. And the second is that calling doesn't have to be vocational, it doesn't have to be your career. I I am very lucky to do what I do. I love what I do. Um, but if you're sitting there thinking, oh, somebody's being called, that means they got to quit their job, they got to go to seminary, they got to become a pastor. That's not it. Your calling might not be your career, it might just be that person that God keeps putting in front of you. For this season, it might be for you to go and walk alongside them in their grief or in their concern or in their need. It might be that God is calling you to a ministry in this church that is perfect for you. That somebody's been inviting you. Hey, why don't you come participate in this? And you're like, no, that's somebody else. That's for somebody else too. I don't have time, I'm too busy, I got my head down, I'm not looking up, I'm not focused, I'm gonna leave that children's ministry director who just asked me to serve on a Sunday morning on red. God is calling each of us. God wants to use you. God has purposes and plans for your life. When God finally got Moses to turn around and look up, Moses argued. Moses complained, Moses had concerns. You don't have to have everything figured out to know that God is calling you to something and even to accept that calling. You don't have to have uh be devoid of questions to take a step in faith. I mean, think about it. Every time Moses is like, I don't want to do this, I don't want to do this. Who am I? I'm not good enough. How many times have you looked at your own life like, I'm not good enough to do that? I couldn't sing in the praise team, you know, I'm not good. No, how many times have you said, you know, I would I would be cool to go on a Costa Rica mission trip, but I don't know if that's for me. What is it that God might be calling you to? Maybe it is something big. I don't know. Maybe you are being called to quit your job and go to seminary or go start some nonprofit. But maybe it's just like God is calling you to return that message that you've been waiting to return. God is calling you to offer some kindness to a person who is in desperate need of some personal connection. This isn't a sermon to tell you you have to have it all figured out to be able to do what God's calling you to do. It's not a sermon to tell you that you have to make some grand gesture with your entire career. You can question God, and God can take it. Honest wrestling is not the same thing as running away. What God is after is not a person's with no questions or no fears. Uh what God is after is a person who will raise their head up and pay attention to what God is already doing in your life, what God is calling you to, how God is already there. I've been convinced more and more, I've been convicted more and more, about um how Bradshaw and all my children, they don't want me to just say, yeah. They want my eyes, they want me there, they want me to pay attention. They'll stand there, they'll turn my whole face to pay attention to what is going on. And I think this is one of the ways for me that a child is offering me the image of God. You know, the scripture says that the little children will lead us. Let the children come unto me, for unto such belongs the kingdom of God. God is not looking for our distracted yeah. God wants our eyes, God wants our attention, God wants us to turn and look and then to take seriously what he's already doing. How God is already at work. What burning bush have you been driving past every day? What is it that has been catching you in the corner of your eyes, but you've been turning intentionally turning away from? What have you known for a while now? You've been sitting with but avoiding because you just wanted to keep your head down because right now it's comfortable. Right now it's safe. Sometime this week, I pray you will turn aside, you will take a moment to stop and to look. Moses was a man caught in between, between the God who was calling him to something uncomfortable and a life that was really nice and easy and ordinary. But it was one decision, one small decision that completely changed his entire world. He stopped, he turned, he looked, he paid attention. And I have no doubt there will be no different in your life. That God has something great in store for each of us. If we'll just stop long enough to raise our heads up. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, will you pray with me?