We had one, and I loved that ball, but always had to take it back inside and leave it in the locked sports equipment cabinet.

Just a football; but it seemed like so much more when it was in my hand – suddenly I was Johnny Unitas; and if you don’t know who he is, you’re not old enough! He exploded into national prominence playing college ball for the University of Louisville, throwing 11 consecutive passes, 3 for touchdowns in a game against St. Bonaventure in 1951. Called the “Golden Arm,” he dominated pro-football in the ‘50s and ‘60s. His record of throwing a touchdown pass in 47 consecutive games (between 1956-1960) stands as of 2008. He was the NFL’s MVP in ’59, ’64, and ’67.

So what’s a ball like that worth to a 12 year old kid, a ball that made you feel like Johnny Unitas? Well, I found one high on a shelf in a local store. “$12 bucks,” the storekeeper said, “That ball is worth $12 bucks.”

So I picked up windfall apples for the next month in a local orchard for 10 cents a bushel to get the $12 Rawlings football. Now, comparing footballs and apples, you realize how much a football is worth? Well, $12 equals exactly 120 bushels; plus tax which at a penny or two on the dollar meant another couple of bushels. Now, with an average of 100 apples to a bushel, we always piled high, so let’s say 110 apples to a bushel. That means I picked up 13,500 apples to get a $12 football!

Today, a professional Rawlings football can cost you a $100.

If you want a Rawlings pro-level baseball, you’ll pay $50 or more. But that same baseball hit as Barry Bonds 756^th home run brought one guy $752,000 and change.

You see, what you have in your hand is a matter of perspective.

So what is that in your hand? What is it worth?

It’s just a rod, God, Moses answered. Now, remember from the text, Moses had just watched a bush on fire that didn’t burn up: God, you just set a bush on fire that didn’t burn up – and you’re asking me about a stick?

Get the picture? Burning bush not consumed; a stick with desert dust all over it. Yet God is concerned about the stick, a thing that is just ordinary, everyday stuff – ?

It’s a rod, God.

But more than that, this ordinary rod was

I.                    The Rod of a Shepherd

a.       Note v. 1, 2: God’s question follows Moses protest, in essence, I can’t. Now, God is sending Moses to lead Israel out of Egypt – no small task. And Moses remembers what happened when he tried 40 years before – presumptuous failure. God was requiring Moses to step out of a familiar role into strange, unfamiliar territory, but more, he was forcing Moses to face up to an embarrassment that happened 40 years before in order that Moses would take hold of what he had been right about all along – he was called of God to deliver Israel and it was the Israelites who had rejected him who were wrong! Moses had just tried a little too much too soon.

b.      So God connects the coming unfamiliar to the present very familiar. Moses, what do you have? What you have is going to relate to what you will be doing just as it has to what you have been doing. Moses, all you need is that rod. Moses, I needed a shepherd, now you are one!

c.       ILLUS: The 23^rd Psalm speaks of “rod and staff;” some think of the rod and staff of biblical times as the same tool, the “crook.” But when David explains to Saul why he thinks he can go against Goliath, he tells of rescuing sheep from the “mouth” of a bear and lion. To do so, he tells Saul, “I struck it and killed it.” How did he strike it? As valiant as David was, he most likely did not hit the lion with a right cross! He had rod and staff, the rod being distinct from the “crook.” Either may be called a “staff,” but the staff with the crook was not the rod: the rod is a rod, a shorter stout stick with a knob on the end, as much a club as a staff and might be called a staff, but was a rod, intended to be a killing machine when required: the shepherd would literally throw the club like a missile to hit the predator, stun it, and then follow up with the kill. Moses had used that rod for 40 years in the desert, and like David, had probably killed more than one lion with it. But he was now about to make the biggest kill of all. With it, he would part the waters of the Red Sea, lead Israel through the sea, while leading Pharaoh’s army into the sea to their destruction!

This came about because this shepherd’s rod became

II.                 The Rod of a Servant

a.       V. 3 “Throw the rod on the earth…” God said; and it became a snake, real enough that Moses “ran from it.” But God instructs, “Reach out your hand and take it by the tail.” Note:

                                                               i.      This required absolute trust on Moses part. Moses was defenseless; the rod he used to club many a snake now was a snake! But God says, “Reach out your hand, take it by the tail…” When Moses obeyed, it became a rod again. The point is, this was not magic, but trust in God demonstrated by obedience.

                                                             ii.      To show this, that the rod was not a magician’s wand, God has Moses put his hand in his inside pocket, as it were – in his bosom, says the HERITAGE. The hand turns leprous; put in again, it was restored. The power was not in Moses hand holding the rod, but in doing what God said, in obedience to God.

                                                            iii.      You see, the rod had become the rod of a servant of God.

b.      ILLUS: The snake, a cobra specifically, was a symbol of Pharaoh’s power, Moses enemy. Later, God will have Moses place a bronze image of snake on a pole so that people bitten by poisonous snakes could look to it and live. The Bible pictures our enemy Satan as a serpent, a snake – we have been bitten, as it were, by sin which is Satan’s doing. So Jesus in John says that “just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the son of man must be lifted up that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.” On the cross Jesus took that curse of sin on himself, and as we look to Jesus we are healed. The point is, by obeying God’s command to look to Jesus, like Moses we take the snake by the tail; not of just any snake, as if snake handlers, but of “that original snake,” says the HERITAGE, “being called the devil and Satan.” Rather than running from the snake, confessing what he is doing to us, at God’s command do what God says in any given situation…and the snake will become a rod in your hand!

c.       ILLUS: But it is the rod of a servant, not a magician; this is not about miracles at the push of a button, but as provision for doing the will of God. A friend, Sandy Baker was a missionary to Mexico, and worked with a Bible school located in that barren swath of high desert stretching from El Paso, TX southward. She tells of that school having poured fresh concrete as the floor and foundation for a new dormitory. Moisture levels in the concrete are critical, the ideal for structural concrete being 17%-24%; more or less than that and it won’t cure right to have the strength to support a structure. So they’ve poured this bottom floor and foundation and have no money for a redo. Suddenly, as can happen in high desert, a thunderstorm appeared on the horizon, marching right toward them. If you’ve seen it, you know it comes on like an army marching in rank: dry on one side, dry on the other, but a solid sheet of water in between veering neither to the right or the left. I’ve seen them coming at what appeared to be several miles away and in minutes you’re being soaked – they can fill dry gullies faster than you can get out of them. The storm was headed right for the freshly poured concrete and only minutes away. While the working crew starts looking for cover, the “crazy” missionary heading up the school starts running toward the approaching storm as fast as the storm is coming toward him; he gets between the storm and the newly poured concrete and in the name of Jesus rebukes the storm. No, it didn’t stop raining; but a wind immediately started blowing in from the west pushing the storm to the east just enough to miss the freshly poured concrete.

In just this way, the rod of a servant becomes

III.               The Rod of God

a.       V. 17, “But take this rod in your hand…”  The interesting thing about this verse is that leading up to it Moses has argued with God about everything but this rod. God has bent over backwards to reassure Moses on every point, even to the extent that he’s to deliver a message to Pharaoh, but Aaron will do the talking. But there is no argument about the rod; so

                                                               i.      You’ve heard of security blankets? God reinforces what Moses is comfortable with: take the rod with you!

                                                             ii.      V, 20: the rod becomes the link between what Moses knows and what God will have him do and so Moses calls it, “the rod of God.” It is as if it were the hand of God reaching down to hold his hand.

                                                            iii.      But what makes a thing the rod of God? Not inherent magical secret powers; but that it is a shepherd’s rod become a servant’s rod in the hand of a shepherd – this is what makes it the rod of God: not what it does, but what it is in Moses hand.

b.      ILLUS: A pot of soup and a loaf of bread became the rod of God in the hand of my mother. A certain family down the street hated Pentecostals, and the lady of the house went out of her way to let us know it. But the lady liked my Mom’s homemade soup and bread. You could smell my Mom’s homemade bread all over Albuquerque; and my Mom made sure this family got some whenever she baked. Then their father went to the hospital with leukemia. This lady comes to the Pentecostal soup-maker bread-baker to ask for prayer and hears about a straight-line to heaven, no need to go through an intermediary, Jesus is the only mediator you need. A loaf of bread became the rod of God and brought that family to Christ!

c.       ILLUS: So you’ve just come home from a Benny Hinn service; or you’ve heard about the latest Rinhold Bonke crusade in South Africa. You’re pumped; you feel the power; you’re ready to break five loaves and two fishes and feed 5000 or so. And God shows you a computer, cell phone, a fishing rod, a basketball, a dirt buggy, a kitchen stove. You’re like Moses who just watched a burning bush not burn up and God wants to talk about a rod, a stick, a piece of wood. What is that in your hand?  God will make you into a Moses by taking what is in your hand, what you know, what you are comfortable with and turning it into a rod of God.

 

CONCLUSION: In his book, Leadership on the Other Side, Pastor Bill Easum describes a church in Honolulu, Hawaii, that started with four people and grew to be about 5000 and still counting when the book was published. There was no burning bush attracting people to the supernatural; no parting of the red sea, and in fact very little program. There was only the rod of God in each one’s hand – each of the originators had something they knew, were comfortable with, enjoyed and did very well. One guy for example was a computer wiz. Another played a guitar; and so on. They would meet together for weekly prayer, worship and Bible study led by one of them who spearheaded it all as a pastor. As they prayed God revealed a plan: they covenanted together, agreeing that each of them would find four other people who would be helped by learning what they knew – they shared what God had placed in their hand. The computer guy found four others who needed what he knew or just enjoyed tech talk; the guitar guy found four other budding musicians; and so on. They didn’t hit anyone over the head with a Bible; they shared life and what they knew – the rod in their hand – on a somewhat regular basis. And if you are sharing life it is natural to share Jesus; and to invite a person to church on Sunday morning. The point is, the four became 16; the 16 became 64; the 64, 256, and so on. There were bumps, not every four became 16, but many did, and a thriving church is the result…now what is that in your hand?