"What is in Your Hand?" | Pastor Ben Kellert
"What is in Your Hand?" | Pastor Ben Kellert
Sunday, July 13, 2025
Exodus 4:1-17
"Moses answered, “What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, ‘The Lord did not appear to you’?”
2 Then the Lord said to him, “What is that in your hand?”
“A staff,” he replied.
3 The Lord said, “Throw it on the ground.”
Moses threw it on the ground and it became a snake, and he ran from it. 4 Then the Lord said to him, “Reach out your hand and take it by the tail.” So Moses reached out and took hold of the snake and it turned back into a staff in his hand. 5 “This,” said the Lord, “is so that they may believe that the Lord, the God of their fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has appeared to you.”
6 Then the Lord said, “Put your hand inside your cloak.” So Moses put his hand into his cloak, and when he took it out, the skin was leprous—it had become as white as snow.
7 “Now put it back into your cloak,” he said. So Moses put his hand back into his cloak, and when he took it out, it was restored, like the rest of his flesh.
8 Then the Lord said, “If they do not believe you or pay attention to the first sign, they may believe the second. 9 But if they do not believe these two signs or listen to you, take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground. The water you take from the river will become blood on the ground.”
10 Moses said to the Lord, “Pardon your servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.”
11 The Lord said to him, “Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute? Who gives them sight or makes them blind? Is it not I, the Lord? 12 Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.”
13 But Moses said, “Pardon your servant, Lord. Please send someone else.”
14 Then the Lord’s anger burned against Moses and he said, “What about your brother, Aaron the Levite? I know he can speak well. He is already on his way to meet you, and he will be glad to see you. 15 You shall speak to him and put words in his mouth; I will help both of you speak and will teach you what to do. 16 He will speak to the people for you, and it will be as if he were your mouth and as if you were God to him. 17 But take this staff in your hand so you can perform the signs with it.”
Moses, the Shepherd, has an encounter that 3500 years later we are still talking about:
- Exodus 3:5 “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.”
- A life-altering experience and encounter with God!
Authority: I Am
Irony: Moses doesn't feel qualified to confidently convice the people and yet he is trying to argue with God!
*God often calls us to do things that we don't feel capable of doing.
- Often times, God will call us to do things that we are not comfortable with because He wants to stretch us.
It's not our ability He's after, it's our Availability!
What is that in your hand?
- Is it really just a staff?
- Jochebed had straw
- Hannah had a small child
- Ruth had a stalk of grain
- The little boy had a lunch
- The widow had enough food for one meal
- What do you have in your hand?
Each of us has something that God can use! (Gifts, talents, tools etc...)
- Remember, our gifts and talents don't diminish with age... God can still use you even if you're 95 years old!
God wants us to stay active in our service to Him until we breathe our last breath!
What's in your hand?
- Give it to God and He will use it and multiply it
Don't fixate on what you think you can't do or let that stop you from doing what you can do!
God can use what you have to be a blessing to others (and it just may surprise you!)
When you give it to God it can yield a harvest greater than you can ever imagine!
*Next, click here to watch the full replay of this sermon: "What is in Your Hand?"