God of the impossible in big things – Exodus Chapter 3 verse 18

When you listen to speeches delivered by great people like Winston Churchill or Martin Luther king you soon realise they have an ability to lift you from where you are and present you a different but attainable future.
I have, myself, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our Island home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone.  June 1940. Winston Churchill

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.'”   “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin, but by the content of their character.”  “I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.”  August 28th 1963. Martin Luther King
 “Two thousand years ago the proudest boast was civis Romanus sum [I am a Roman citizen]. Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is ‘Ich bin ein Berliner’… All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and, therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words ‘Ich bin ein Berliner!’” – June 26th 1963.  John F Kennedy

The legacy of these speeches, and the legacy of the vision they imparted changed our world. That change was not at the time they were given, it was not instant; it came when the people who heard them were inspired to believe the future could be different, could be better, and were given the courage to go and make that promise a reality.

Matthew Paris a columnist for The Times commented yesterday that so far we do not have a Winston Churchill or a Kennedy or a King. What we have are managers trying to manage a crisis when what we need are leaders who will raise our vision to a better future. He’s right.

See, some crisis you can manage your way out of, others require leadership. The really big ones require leadership.

For instance if your nation had been in slavery for a couple of hundred years, if every male child was being put to death so that within a generation your people were threatened with extinction. You can’t manage your way out of that, you need a leader. Someone who can hold out a better future.

We know the story of Moses, we have heard it lots and lots of times. We know about him being hidden, his mother becoming his wet nurse and raising him for the queen. We know he lost all that and we know he came back when God asked him to lead his people.

We know Moses was a great leader, because we look back on it. If, however, we went back to Egypt one thing is for sure, Moses never knew he was going to be a great leader. He didn’t come into the world and think… yes, I am going to free my people from tyranny when I grow up. He was concerned with his next meal, the same as any other baby.

When did all this start then, at what point did this great leader become the great leader?

Years later the king of Egypt died, but the Israelites were still groaning under their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry went up to God, who heard their groaning and remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He saw the slavery of the Israelites and was concerned for them.
(Exodus 2:23-25)

It was when God heard the cry of his people. God was the one who took the steps to get the leader who would lead the people who would change the world. God was the one who put the courage in a mother’s heart to save her son. He was the one who put the love in a queen’s heart to take in a strange Hebrew boy and raise him as her own.

It was God who did this, yet he never swept down and made huge changes. He worked through all the different people who pursued their lives and from all their actions he wove a tapestry that resulted in the huge changes.

For want of a nail, the shoe was lost;
For want of the shoe, the horse was lost;
For want of the horse, the rider was lost;
For want of the rider, the battle was lost;
For want of the battle, the kingdom was lost;
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.
or want of a blacksmith there was no nail in the first place. The smallest thing like a nail, the most insignificant thing like a nail can change the fate of nations. You and I do not know, we cannot even imagine where the ripples of our actions will end up.

God said to Moses:

I have indeed heard the cry of my people, and I see how the Egyptians are oppressing them. Now I am sending you to the king of Egypt so that you can lead my people out of his country.” But Moses said to God, “I am nobody. How can I go to the king and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”
(Exodus 3:9-11)

The leader that Moses became is not the leader he was. He was shy, he was in some respects a coward because he ran away when his crime was discovered. He had no desire to go back and be confronted with the life of splendour he had but had now lost. Going back meant hardship.

Something we don’t often realise is before God could move the Israelites from Egypt he first had to move Moses back there. He first had to raise Moses vision so Moses could see a new future.

Do you think that Winston or King or Kennedy could hold out a brighter future if they themselves couldn’t visualise it. You can only lead when you are willing to say the place we are going to be is not where we are now. You might not know where it is, you know it’s not where you are.

This is what Matthew Paris picked up on. He commented on the fact Brown and Darling and others are trying to do what we do better when what’s needed is to do something different. It would have been no good if Churchill had encouraged Britain to be better in defeat without holding the prospect of one day being free.

So… where does this leave us?

It really all comes down to faith. Do you believe that God can take the smallest thing you do and from it, change the world? When you read the scriptures, when you look at this wonderful creation in all its beauty, do you believe God has something better?

It all comes down to faith. The hardest step that Moses took was not facing Pharaoh; it was the first step closer to that bush. Such a small step changed his whole life.

You and I are not being asked by God to change the world. We are being asked to take a step and with that step, God will change the world.

In closing, one of my favourite movies is called Evan Almighty. It is where God in the shape of Morgan Freeman asks a man to build an Ark. They of course are ridiculed. At one point in the film the man’s wife who is struggling with her husband slowly going nuts meets God and they have this conversation where God says to her:
“If someone prays for patience, do you think God gives them patience? Or does He give them the opportunity to be patient? If they pray for courage, does God give them courage or does He give them the opportunity to be courageous? If someone prayed for their family to be closer, do you think God zaps them with warm fuzzy feelings? Or does He give them opportunities to love each other?”
— Morgan Freeman in Evan Almighty

For years now we have lamented the decline of our church. People no longer come, people are no longer interested. Our Sunday schools struggle, our congregations don’t die, they just fade into irrelevance.

Do you think when we pray for churches to be full, God will send everybody in? Or do you think God will instead give us opportunities to love and to show there is a different way?

How do we do it? We take one small step and with that one small step our God can change the world? He is a God of the impossible in big things, bigger than any of us can even imagine.

One small step…

Amen.