SPEAKER IDENTIFICATION

Speaker 1 - Pastor / Worship Leader
This speaker leads the call to worship, greeting, Scripture readings, congregational confession, prayer, sermon, closing prayer, and benediction. The transcript does not provide the speaker's name, and it does not contain reliable voice labels showing whether more than one worship leader handled these spoken portions. They are therefore assigned one functional label rather than separate identities being guessed.

Speaker 2 - Congregation / Choir
This collective speaker participates in congregational singing and the corporate confession. The automated transcript does not reliably distinguish a choir from the full congregation, so the combined functional label is used.

Speaker 2 - Congregation / Choir

[Opening music or congregational singing. The automated lyrics are severely corrupted and cannot be reliably reconstructed from the provided transcript.]

Speaker 1 - Pastor / Worship Leader

Our call to worship comes from Psalm 100. Hear these words:

"Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness; come before Him with joyful songs. Know that the Lord is God. It is He who made us, and we are His. We are His people, the sheep of His pasture.

"Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise; give thanks to Him and praise His name. For the Lord is good, and His love endures forever; His faithfulness continues through all generations."

Speaker 2 - Congregation / Choir

[Congregational singing. The automated lyrics are not reliable enough to reproduce.]

Speaker 1 - Pastor / Worship Leader

Tonight, we come into the presence of a holy God who was loving us and had us in mind long before the foundation of the world. That's something we need to hear from Him tonight.

So hear His greeting: grace to you and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, through the mighty and present work of God's Holy Spirit. Amen.

Welcome to evening worship at LaGrave Church. It's so good to see you. It's good to be together in this space.

Some of you were here this morning and know that I said a lot of words at the beginning of the service. I'm not going to do that right now. I'm going to talk a little more about the fire in my message tonight, but I want to say a word about how thankful we are to be able to gather in this place together tonight, sing to God, look to Him, and trust Him with our next steps. Thank you for being at worship together.

Our reading tonight is from Acts chapter 7. It's a couple of verses from Stephen's speech before the Sanhedrin. I chose it because Stephen is trying to show the continuity of God's plan from 1,300 years earlier, at the time of Moses, all the way to the time of Jesus.

We're going to be in Moses territory this evening. It was remarkable to me to remember again: 1,300 years between Moses and Stephen, and 2,000 years between Stephen and us. We're still telling the stories. God has been faithful over a long, long time. So hear these words:

"After 40 years had passed" - after Moses had been in the wilderness - "an angel appeared to Moses in the flames of a burning bush in the desert near Mount Sinai," Stephen says.

"When he saw this, he was amazed at the sight. When he went over to get a closer look, he heard the Lord say, 'I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.' Moses trembled with fear and did not dare to look.

"Then the Lord said to him, 'Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground. I have indeed seen the oppression of My people in Egypt. I have heard their groaning and have come down to set them free. Now come, I will send you back to Egypt.'

"This is the same Moses they had rejected with the words, 'Who made you ruler and judge?' He was sent to be their ruler and deliverer by God Himself, through the angel who appeared to him in the bush. He led them out of Egypt and performed wonders and signs in Egypt, at the Red Sea, and for 40 years in the wilderness.

"This is the Moses who told the Israelites," pointing ahead to Jesus, "'God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your own people.'"

Let's stand and raise our voices together to profess what we believe about the God we serve, using the words of the Belgic Confession.

Speaker 2 - Congregation / Choir

We all believe in our hearts and confess with our mouths that there is a single and simple spiritual being whom we call God: eternal, incomprehensible, invisible, unchangeable, infinite, almighty, completely wise, just, and good, and the overflowing source of all good.

We know God by two means. First, by the creation, preservation, and government of the universe, since that universe is before our eyes like a beautiful book in which all creatures, great and small, are as letters to make us ponder the invisible things of God: God's eternal power and divinity, as the apostle Paul says in Romans 1:20. All these things are enough to convict humans and to leave them without excuse.

Second, God makes Himself known to us more clearly by His holy and divine Word, as much as we need in this life for God's glory and our salvation.

[Congregational singing. The automated lyrics are severely corrupted and cannot be reliably reconstructed.]

Speaker 1 - Pastor / Worship Leader

As we go before our Lord in prayer, this prayer is very open-ended. As you listen and pray along in your own heart, you may find that there are places where you can fill in the concerns you want to raise before the Lord. Let's pray.

O God, who is light in darkness, we pray for those among us who, in their night hours, work their shifts, and for those who labor in places where the light is dim. Be for them and for us protection in the dark.

O God, who is the bright morning star, we pray for those among us who grieve the loss of loved ones, the tarnishing of innocence, the failing of health, and the flight of security. Be for them and for us assured defense in the promise of a new day.

O God, who is sight to the blind, we pray for those among us whose eyes are clouded and who are blind in soul, mind, or body. Be for them and for us both courage and sight.

O God, who is strength to the besieged, we pray for those among us who are beset by temptation, those who are in danger, those whose enemies are close, and those whose help seems far away. Be for them and for us a present fortress against our enemies.

O God, who is salvation to the lost, we pray for those among us who have never found Your way or who, having found it, have strayed from it. Be for them and for us the light that guides them safely home.

O God, who is comfort to the fearful, we pray for those among us who live in fear of threats, real or imagined; whose lives are torn by war; whose thoughts are confused; and whose souls or bodies are ravaged by abuse. Be for them and for us consolation and deliverance.

Give us wisdom, O God, to turn to You in times of stress, fear, and grief, and in times of blindness, temptation, or danger. Grant us patience to wait for You and courage to be strong in Your might. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, amen.

Our Scripture passage for this evening is from Exodus chapter 3, in the first few pages of your Bible, page 89 in the pew Bibles in front of you. Listen to these words:

"Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led his 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, although the bush was on fire, 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 are 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 have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have 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 - the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.

"'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. 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. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: "I AM has sent me to you."'

"God also said to Moses, 'Say to the Israelites, "The Lord, the God of your fathers - the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob - has sent me to you." This is My name forever, the name you shall call Me from generation to generation.'"

This is the Word of the Lord.

This Scripture reading was chosen before the events of this past week. It sounds a little different to us today than it would have if we had listened to it together even last Sunday, because last Sunday was business as usual.

The LaGrave campus was home to two sanctuaries with stained-glass windows. Both structures that housed those windows had all of their exterior walls and a reliable roof. There was no water in the basement next door. The smell of smoke was not heavy in the narthex. That's different now. Now, half of the historic building behind us is gone.

I wondered whether this planned Scripture passage for tonight was still appropriate for us to focus on the Sunday after the Wednesday of a devastating church fire. Do you preach a Bible passage featuring a bush that isn't consumed by fire after you've watched part of your church be consumed by fire? Is that a little too close for comfort?

Well, I guess not. I decided ultimately that this is where we were going to be together tonight.

Many of you came by the church on Thursday, and we stood in the parking lot together. I'm sure others of you were following the news closely as it reported what was happening down here. Those of you who came seemed just a little uncertain about whether you should come, and I felt a little of that, too.

I'm not a firefighter. I can do nothing to help except stand in the parking lot, bear witness, and pray. Would we be in the way? Were we merely being nosy by wanting to come down?

In most cases, I don't think so at all. I think the impulse to come down, to be with the people of the church, and to experience the reality of Thursday morning was a different kind of act than a nosy act. I think you wanted to bear witness. You wanted to see history in our church. You wanted to stand in awe of the consuming power of fire. You wanted to be assured, by our presence together, that the church is more than its buildings.

So, like Moses tending his father-in-law's flock on the far side of the wilderness, the glint of a flickering blaze has now captured our attention. Like Moses, we've gone out of our way to see a strange sight. Like Moses, in the face of something we cannot explain and cannot control, we are paying attention for what God has next.

From inside the bush, Moses hears God call, "Moses! Moses!" He makes his way toward the thicket, and as he comes closer, he breathes in some air, and it is strangely fresh. He looks a little more closely. There's no ash on the ground. In fact, wouldn't you know, he sees woody canes with green leaves fluttering in the flames. Nothing on that bramble is actually burning up.

Before Moses can reach out a hand to see if it's even hot, God's voice stops him: "Moses, do not come any closer. Take off your sandals. The place where you are standing is holy ground."

Of course, on the face of things, it makes just as much sense in the rocky, dry desert to take off your shoes as it does to say you've witnessed a bush on fire that isn't actually burning. Thorns and gravel hurt tender bare feet as surely as flames turn wood to ash.

But the God who calls Moses commands the created world in ways that Moses, the Israelites, Pharaoh, and the Egyptians could hardly have imagined, even if you had told them about the flies, frogs, boils, and hail ahead of time.

So Moses listens. He stops. He heeds God's warning to stand and slip off his shoes, barefoot on holy ground. The arches of his feet recoil at the pressure of the sharp rocks. Pieces of gravel stick to his calloused heels. His eyes are seeing a fire that doesn't consume, and his ears hear a voice unlike anything he has ever heard.

From the soles of his feet to the top of his head, it is a multisensory experience of being confronted with the holy. It's terrifying. He can feel his smallness and his vulnerability in God's presence. The experience will stay with him long enough to give him exactly what he needs to walk with this God into the next step.

The stories passed down from this event will remain with his people long enough to shape how future generations approach this God: in awe, with their shoes off.

For many of us, when we hear that God is holy, we think about God's moral perfection: that He is, as we said together earlier, completely wise, just, and good, and the overflowing source of all that is good.

When we're aware of God's moral perfection, we're also aware of what follows from it: anything that's not holy can't be in His presence. Anything contaminated by sin can't come in. If God's moral perfection is the first thing that comes to mind for you, you have a good grounding in our need for atonement. You probably have an appreciation for the book of Leviticus. You've seen the need for a sacrifice for sinful people so they're covered when they come into the presence of a holy God.

That's definitely part of Scripture's testimony about God's holiness. Just as we take off our shoes when we go into someone's home and keep the dirt out of their space, there's something about not bringing the dirt of our ordinary lives or the smudges of our sin into God's holy space.

But if we think only of God's moral perfection when we think about His holiness, we miss something. In our passage tonight, God's holiness means something in addition to that. It means everything about God that inspires our awe.

God's holiness is a little like the strength of the sun. This is the best metaphor I read this week to think about it. The sun is a one-of-a-kind, unique source of light, heat, and life in our solar system. From a distance, the sun's brightness and warmth feed and sustain all life on Earth.

But if you get too close to the sun - if you could fly a rocket ship up there and get really close - what would happen? You would get burned. Not because the sun wants to torch you for getting too close, but because the sun, by its very nature, is as dangerous as it is life-giving. The sun overpowers the chemical building blocks that make up humans. Get too close, and the sun's strength consumes.

So, for Moses' protection, God says, "Stop. Stay where you are. Before we get acquainted, there's something you should know. You should know I'm holy. You should know I'm completely different from you. You should know My goodness is powerful. Your appropriate response is awe. Take off your shoes.

"I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. I have indeed seen the sight of My people's misery in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue.

"Now the cry of the Israelites has reached Me because I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them."

Had Moses not been frozen in fear, that would be the appropriate moment to jump up and shout for joy. Could it be that the God of his fathers, the God he has heard about, the God who says He has seen and is concerned about His people today, is going to come down after 400 years of palpable silence? Has this God chosen this very moment to march Himself right down to Pharaoh's courtroom and demand an accounting?

Well, yes and no. What does God say next? Now who goes? "You go, Moses. I'm sending you to Pharaoh to bring My people, the Israelites, out of Egypt."

Oh dear, that's unexpected. God is sending him to Pharaoh. The risks of Moses' obedience just increased quite a lot. In the space of two commands plus a couple of explanatory words, God has moved Moses from the relatively small command of taking off his shoes to lacing those same shoes up again and going to confront an enemy king.

Understandably, Moses has a whole lot of questions. He will ask and object in this chapter and in chapter 4. Fascinatingly, God is incredibly patient with his questions. He does not show Moses who He is all at once. He does not download a divine plan to effect the rescue of His people all at once, either.

Yahweh, the covenant God of Moses' fathers, teaches Moses who He is and what He wants to do gradually, little by little by little. This seems to be God's usual way of working: patiently, through process.

Getting to know this God means something more than knowing things about Him, as important as it is to know His holy name. Knowing this God means interaction, relationship, worship, conversation, dependence, trust, and steps in God's direction.

So Moses stands barefoot on the edge of God's turf. He witnesses evidence of God's powerful holiness there at the bush. He begins to know God more fully. God gives a halting, perseverating Moses enough courage to pick up his shoes and take up an intimidating task a little at a time. But make no mistake: it is not really Moses' task. It is God's task.

When Moses takes off his shoes at the burning bush, some scholars think that, by doing so, he is actually releasing any claims he might make to this land that God has moved into. In support, they point to the story of Naomi's relative in Ruth chapter 4. That relative, who has a closer claim than Boaz to Naomi's property, takes off his shoe at the city gate and hands it to Boaz as a sign of relinquishing his right to the land.

The land around the burning bush is holy, set apart by God's presence. When Moses takes off his shoes, he's saying, "This is Your space." I wonder if he's also saying, "This task is Your task. You will be on the move in the midst of it. It belongs to You."

As Moses heeds and holds this call from God, he will feel the heat of conflict. He will feel the fire of adversity. Yahweh's claim to free His people directly conflicts with the claims of Egypt and other loyalties that compete with God's claim. Despite that adversity, Moses will not be consumed as he carries this call.

What about us in our call as LaGrave Church? If you feel a little worn out, a little burned up, as you look at the building next door and wonder what's next, that would be understandable.

The fire that was here did damage. It did consume. There was no voice that called out of the blaze. There was no immediate evidence or reason to think that we were visited by a manifestation of God's divine presence in that fire.

That doesn't mean for a minute that God has released His call and His claim on this church. It doesn't mean for a minute that God has pulled away from us. It doesn't mean for a minute that Yahweh, the God who is, is not patiently working to do what He sets out to do and to use us to do it.

All of the things yet to come notwithstanding, one of our first steps as a community might be to take a moment of barefoot awe. Stand with our vulnerable, bare, going-nowhere-fast feet and acknowledge God's ownership and claim.

God owns our building. God ensures His kingdom presence right here at Cherry and LaGrave. God continues to hold on to us as a church body.

The fire might give us many reasons to stand with God and ask questions about what He is doing, what He has for us now, and how He wants to use us to do what He has for us. But He'll ask us to lean into Him for the next step.

The time will certainly come for us when, like Moses at the burning bush leaving the fire of God's presence to go have a showdown with Pharaoh, we'll have to put our shoes on again and go forward into the call.

But our first step is awe: to recognize again the facts that the fire just made so clear to us - that our resources, our church, and our very selves have God's claim on them. They are holy.

Moses had evidence right there in the bush, a sign of Yahweh's presence right there with him. He was also given a sign that would be a future fulfillment of the promises. The future sign that would confirm God's promises was that Israel would come right back there, to the ground God had claimed, to worship together.

We who live 3,000 years later have signs from God, too, because the God whose holiness is like the blazing sun came to our Earth. That God was born of a woman. He inhabited a womb and did not consume it.

That God walked the streets of Galilee and Judea, wearing the same sandals as everyone else - sandals that someone as great as John the Baptist didn't think he was worthy to untie. When His disciples' feet were dirty, He washed them clean, a picture of the washing His death would accomplish.

He taught them to go and serve in His name, by His Spirit, to carry His good news and His presence everywhere they went. He won't give up until His work is done, and He will give us what we need as we keep walking with Him. Amen.

You have our attention, holy God. You have our attention. Help us as we seek to wait on You and sit with You in our questions, fears, and wonderings. We honor You for the call You have given us to be Your people.

Help us take our next steps in dependence on You and Your direction. We ask that Your kingdom will come and Your will be done right here in us. In Jesus' name, amen.

As you leave, go out with a God whose presence goes with you.

May the Lord bless you and keep you. May He make His face shine on you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up the light of His face upon you and smile on you. And may He give you His peace today, tomorrow, and forever. Amen.