Howdy You know, I think it was like a year or
two ago there was one point where I was I think
it was early when we started using more of the
sermon slides and I started bringing up that
I had taught math when I was a teacher for a
while there and I was showing something that
was up on the slides and Talking about teaching
math and some of the teachers were like, you
know, that was a really good point that you made
I'm really glad you did that and everybody else
is don't teach us math Oh my word. So I promise,
I'm not going to go into too much detail today,
but I have to point out that I did also teach
physics. I know, I know. And you know, one of
the things that was always funny, we would talk
about stuff like light. Okay, which, you know,
you get to go around with flashlights and get
to talk about it and show how the light can like
spread out and everything else. And I'd like
to, you know, teaching them that show them that
light gives off this energy in little packets
called photons. Pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew.
Just kind of hitting whatever they shine on.
It's not just this smooth continuous flow, but
then I also have to tell them. It's not just
a particle going pew, pew, pew, pew. But instead,
it's also like a wave, and it spreads out, and
it actually overlaps at different times. And
if it were only a particle, you'd never see it
going around a corner. It would never be able
to spread out down a dark hallway. So much of
what we need about light, it's not a particle,
it's not a wave, it's both. And then that's when
their faces would get that look. That mix of
confusion and kind of quiet rebellion, you know,
it's like, that doesn't make any sense and I'd
really like to escape as much as possible, which
is why I don't teach too much Hebrew during these
sermons. And they were right, in a way, it doesn't
make sense, at least not by the categories that
we're used to. But just because it doesn't make
sense, it doesn't change that it's still true.
It works. Light is both a particle and a wave.
It's not one or the other. It's both. And I remember
realizing something about that moment. When something
doesn't make sense, most people don't say, if
it's true, I'll try to understand it. Instead,
they say, I don't understand it, so maybe it's
just not true. You know I saw this again later
whenever we were talking about the theory of
relativity the idea that time and space would
change When you get close to the speed of light
and what I decided to do is you know I gave them
an assignment, and I said this has been proven
to be true What do you think do you believe it
and? What was funny is that half of them said
that even though there was evidence toward it?
because it didn't make any sense, they were pretty
sure it wasn't true. And I think we never quite
grow out of that. We're more comfortable deciding
whether something feels right than asking whether
it is right. When something about God doesn't
make sense to us, when He doesn't act the way
we expect or when His plan doesn't fit our categories,
our first instinct is to stop trusting Him as
much. We're not looking at saying, well, maybe
I just need to lean in. Instead, maybe we question
whether or not His plans are real for our life.
We start questioning whether He has genuinely
seen us as His children. But God, like light,
doesn't fit inside the boxes that we make for
Him. He's not controlled or contained by our
understanding. He simply is. God acts, He moves,
He reveals Himself. And just because we can't
fully explain Him doesn't mean that He isn't
there. It just means that He's greater than what
our minds can hold. And that's the tension that
Moses is encountering in Exodus 3. See, you've
got to remember who Moses was at this time. He's
not out searching for a miracle. He was just
out there doing his job. He was just an everyday
person, tending sheep, living his life, raising
a family. The excitement of Egypt, the way that
he'd grown up, everything there, that was long
behind him. Whatever dreams that he once had
of making a difference for the Hebrew people,
they were buried underneath the routines of survival,
just taking care of business every day. And that's
when God decides to speak to him. Why now? Out
of nowhere, in the middle of an ordinary day,
the divine just breaks in. And it's important
to remember that Moses never really fit anywhere.
He didn't fit in Egypt because he was a Hebrew.
But he didn't fit among the Hebrews because he
grew up in Pharaoh's palace. And then, after
killing the Egyptian, he didn't fit anywhere
at all. because he was a fugitive, a man living
with his regrets. Yet, for whatever reason, that
is the man that God calls. Not when Moses has
his life together, but rather when he's just
simply tending someone else's flock out in the
wilderness. So when Moses hears God's voice,
he's understandably hesitant. He wants to know
how this could possibly work. Why anyone would
listen to him of all people? What if they don't
believe me? What if they ask who sent me? He's
not just asking for the name of God. He's asking
for reassurance. For something solid to stand
on. And what God gives him is not a formula or
a strategy. It's a name. I am who I am. It's
a name that means both presence and promise.
It's as if God is saying, I will be who I will
be. I will do what I will do. My being is not
dependent on your understanding or your comfort.
For a man who had never quite belonged, it's
an invitation into something larger than belonging.
It's participating in the living purpose of God
Himself. And remember, Moses probably didn't
know the traditions or the stories of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob the way that the other Hebrews
did. When God tells him, I am the God of your
fathers, who? He's not just giving Moses words
to say. He's giving him a connection now to a
history that he never truly felt part of. He's
being drawn back into the story of his own people
through revelation. It's no wonder he brought
together all of the stories of Genesis, not just
for the rest of the people, but also for himself.
But here's the turning point. Even after seeing
the burning bush, even after hearing the voice,
Moses still has to decide whether to trust it.
The people will have to do the same. Just like
those students who had to decide whether to believe
in relativity once it became beyond what made
sense, Moses has to decide whether to trust God
beyond what felt comfortable. Because in the
end, faith is not just about what we can explain.
It's about who we trust when the truth is bigger
than what we can grasp. But the same thing, it
continues. in Luke 20. You know those times whenever
somebody is asking a question and you know that
there's something behind it? You're kind of like,
why are you asking me that? It's like instead
of it being just a regular question, you know
that somehow they're trying to trick you a little
bit. Or whenever somebody says and shows, hey,
we're just having an open debate, but you know
that they're actually just setting you up to
try to make you look stupid. See, the Sadducees,
they come to Jesus not with an honest question,
but with a test. They don't believe in the resurrection,
so they come up with this example that's meant
to sound absurd. It's not seven brides for seven
brothers. It's one bride for seven brothers.
And they tell this story about a woman who marries
seven brothers one after another because each
of them dies without leaving a child. So Jesus,
they ask in the resurrection, whose wife will
she be? And that woman at that moment is like,
I don't know, she seems kind of scary. But it's
important to realize that their question is not
really about marriage. It's about control. The
Sadducees are trying to control the conversation,
to expose what they think is the ridiculousness
of the resurrection. See, the details of marriage
and inheritance, those are just props in the
argument. Those are just attempts at trying to
bring up something that doesn't make any sense.
And when Jesus says that in the resurrection
people neither marry nor are given in marriage,
The point is not dismissing marriage or saying
that relationships won't matter. It's not as
if in heaven, in the afterlife, if you ever run
into your spouse, you're supposed to be like,
stay away, I'm not supposed to have anything
to do with you anymore. I mean, come on. You
married them for a reason, right? But what he's
focusing on is talking about how the systems
of this world, the legal, the social, even the
religious, They don't carry the same meaning
in the age to come. Marrying, which would be
in their context the man's initiative, and being
given in marriage, which from their place was
the woman's legal status, they were both parts
of a world that were defined by property and
inheritance and what happens when you die. But
in the resurrection, those old structures, they
don't apply. Because death itself no longer defines
what's possible. You're not looking to try to
have kids in order to propagate your inheritance
because you're not dying ever again anyway. But
what's fascinating though is that even within
the story that the Sadducees tell, their logic
falls apart. If anyone was technically her husband,
it would have been the first one because all
the others were only fulfilling their duty to
raise up children for him. But notice, Jesus
doesn't even bother untangling their details.
He doesn't care. He moves straight to the heart
of the matter. What's the real issue? He is not
the God of the dead, but of the living. And of
course, Jesus doesn't just say that. He proves
it. His own resurrection does not just blow a
hole in the Sadducees' logic. It blows open the
limits of what anyone thought was possible. The
resurrection is not just a theological rebuttal.
It's the living evidence that God is not bound
by death. Time. The categories we use to make
sense of life. The Sadducees, they wanted to
keep faith neatly divided into this life or the
next. what we can see or what we can't, human
power or divine promise. Let's stop thinking
about the afterlife because what we really need
to focus on is how you live today. But in Jesus,
those false boundaries, they collapse. The resurrection,
it reveals God is not setting up a choice between
caring for this world or caring for the next.
Instead, he's redeeming both. Life now and life
eternal are not two competing realities, but
one continuous story held together by the living
God. When Jesus rose from the grave, He didn't
just conquer death. He connected heaven and earth,
showing that God's power doesn't wait until the
end of time. It begins now, in every act of trust,
every step of faith. Every moment we dare to
believe that what's impossible for us is still
possible for him See the real issue here. It
was not marriage. It was the mindset The Sadducees
couldn't imagine a world that operated beyond
their categories of life and death marriage and
inheritance control and power So since they didn't
understand it They mocked it They mocked what
they couldn't control They rejected what they
couldn't explain. And we do the same thing all
the time. We create our own little Sadducee scenarios.
We come up with extreme examples and ridiculous
comparisons to make our point or to justify what
makes us comfortable. I can't talk about this
with my spouse or it'll be the end of the world
if I do. I can't tell my child, no, I mean, they're
just gonna throw a fit and think that I don't
love them. I can't welcome these people into
my life because someone might think that I approve
of everything they've done. I better not be nice
to them. We frame our choices in these false
dichotomies, either or, all or nothing, right
or ruin. But when we do that, we're doing exactly
what the Sadducees did. We're trying to trap
truth inside these boundaries that make us comfortable.
The resurrection like the burning bush is God's
declaration that He cannot be trapped. He will
be who He will be. He will work in His own way
and in His own time. And our part is not to reduce
His mystery into what feels safe or sensible,
but to trust Him enough to take the next faithful
step, even when we don't quite see the whole
picture yet. Because when we do, we often discover
that God's reality It's larger, richer, more
alive than anything we could have imagined. So,
what do we do with all this? Because honestly,
we're not all that different from Moses or from
the Sadducees. I mean, like Moses, we often feel
inadequate, uncertain, unqualified for what God
calls us to do. We look around and think, who
am I to speak? Who am I to lead? Who am I to
believe that God could use Me. And God's response
is the same when He gave Moses. I will be who
I will be. Not you will be enough. I will. God's
promise isn't that you'll have it all figured
out. It's that He'll be with you even when you
don't. And like the Sadducees, we often let our
discomfort masquerade as logic. When something
doesn't fit into categories in our mind, we logic
it away as unrealistic or unreasonable. When
God's ways don't fit our expectations, we treat
them as if they couldn't possibly be true. But
faith is not about explaining mystery. It's about
walking within it. When we stop chasing the comfort
of our tidy answers, then something begins to
shift in us. We start to notice how much of our
decision -making is so shaped by what's convenient,
rather than what's always faithful. How many
of our decisions that we've made were just the
things that seemed normal or safe, instead of
asking, is this really what God wants me to do?
We begin to see how easily we settle for what
other people tell us is reasonable. instead of
asking what God is actually saying. Sometimes
waiting on God means stepping back from the quick
answers or the quick fixes or the ready -made
plans that someone else promised as certainty,
but drain our faith. It might mean refusing to
rush into the next opportunity just because it
looks certain and secure. It might mean pausing
before you send that message, before you sign
that paper. before you take that job and asking
God, where are you in this? Because waiting on
God, it doesn't mean you're doing nothing. It
means doing the slow, deliberate work of listening.
The kind of listening that makes room for God's
timing instead of forcing our own. It means learning
to sit in the tension between the promise and
the fulfillment. without trying to fill that
silence with our own noise. And often that's
where God begins to move. In the waiting, He
reshapes what we desire. In the waiting, He reshapes
us. He teaches us to trust Him, not only for
outcomes, but for direction. He teaches us to
trust Him because He exposes where we've been
relying on approval, control. comparison, and
he replaces those things with something far sturdier,
his presence. Because when you stop taking what
the world offers as good enough, you make space
for what is truly good, the presence of the I
Am, who does not need your timeline or your plan
to keep his promises. And in that stillness,
When you stop trying to force God into your categories
and instead wait on Him to reveal Himself, you
begin to see glimpses of His nature. Mysterious,
steady, radiant light itself. Because you can't
fully describe what light may be as a wave or
a particle or both. Because the moment you try
to fit it into a box, it means you stop understanding
what it really is. But in much the same way,
we try to force God into what makes sense to
us. And we stop seeing who He really is. Because
God does not need to be simple in order to be
good. He doesn't need to fit our plans in order
to be faithful. He just is. So the invitation
to you today is this. Trust the I Am more than
your I understand. Let go of the need to have
it all make sense before you just say yes to
Him. Let God reveal in His own way and time what
you cannot yet see. Because when you do, you'll
start to notice something. The bush still burns,
the voice still calls, and the resurrection still
happens. Because we see it. in what Christ Jesus
has done himself for us. And when it does, real
life begins again. Thanks be to God.