What's the craziest excuse I've heard from a student?
Well, let's see.
There was a time a student told me their family got a new paper shredder,
and they just had to see how it worked with their homework or the time a student told me
he thought his homework was actually a letter to the North Pole so he mailed it there by mistake.
Here are some other crazy excuses.
How about a time a student told me they needed to do their homework tomorrow
so they'd be a whole day wiser?
A kid one time told me that they couldn't do their math homework with a calculator,
because it was solar-powered but it was too cloudy outside. Really?
Now like and subscribe. No excuses.
Those are some pretty bad excuses.
I wonder if any of them worked, but excuses are nothing new.
People have been using them for a long time.
There's even someone in the Bible who made a few excuses.
His name was Moses.
Have you heard of him?
Here's his story.
God's Story: Moses.
So part of God's story is about a guy named Moses, and it begins like this.
When Moses was born, God's special family, the Israelites, were living in Egypt as slaves.
But there were so many Israelites that Pharaoh, Egypt's ruler, was afraid they might attack him
so he ordered that they work extra hard and made a law that all new baby boys had to be killed.
Well, baby Moses's mom didn't want him to die so she came up with a plan.
She put him in a waterproof basket and hid it in the Nile River.
Before long, Pharaoh's daughter, the princess, showed up.
She found the basket and realized Moses was one of the babies her dad was trying to kill.
But instead of hurting Moses, she adopted him.
He grew up in the palace like a prince.
Now Moses should have felt really special and loved
but he felt bad that his people were slaves while he lived in the palace.
So he ran away and tried to help them.
Problem is, they didn't want a prince around.
Moses didn't feel like he belonged anywhere so he ran away again.
This time, he went to a place called Midian.
There he married a lady named Zipporah and worked for her dad, Jethro.
One day, he was taking care of Jethro's sheep when he saw a bush on fire.
As Moses looked more closely, the inside of the bush called out, "Moses, Moses."
Kids, would you answer a burning bush that yells your name?
Well, Moses did.
He said, "Here I am."
Then the bush introduced itself.
It was God appearing as fire and God told Moses that he
could see how his family was suffering as slaves.
Since God loves his family, he wanted to rescue them through Moses.
Now you'd think Moses would be excited since he had wanted to help his people, but he wasn't.
He didn't think he was special enough to get a job from God.
He said, "Why me?"
God reminded him, "I'll be with you."
He even told Moses exactly what to say to the Egyptians, but Moses didn't think anyone would
believe that God had appeared to a regular guy like him, a guy who didn't even belong anywhere.
So God gave Moses three miracles to prove that God was with him
First, God let Moses turn his staff into a snake and back.
Next, Moses put his hand in his cloak.
It came out with leprosy.
Then he did it again to cure it.
Finally, God showed Moses how to turn water into blood.
But even after God showed him all this, Moses was still afraid that nobody would listen to him.
"I don't talk well," he said, "I stutter and stammer."
Then God asked Moses, "Who makes a man able to talk."
God is the one who makes us, and he wanted Moses to remember that and trust him,
but Moses begged, "Please send anybody else."
Fortunately, God loves us even when we're afraid to trust him,
and we don't realize how special we are to him.
He let Moses bring his brother, Aaron, along to do the talking.
After that, Moses finally realized he belonged in God's family.
He didn't have to run away anymore.
So he obeyed God and followed him.
He took his wife and sons to Egypt to tell the Israelites that God was going to rescue them.
The Israelites believed that God was with Moses,
and they were so excited to be rescued that they worshiped God right away.
And that's the story of Moses.
So in case you missed, it here's the quick version.
God's family lived in Egypt.
They were slaves.
Pharaoh said baby boys must die.
Moses's mom had a plan.
Moses was adopted.
He ran away.
Moses returned to his people.
He ran away.
God appeared as fire.
Moses argued with God.
Finally, Moses obeyed.
He knew he belonged in God's family.
And that's a part of God's story.
So that's Moses, adopted and raised as a prince, then chosen to lead his people out of slavery.
That's a big job.
And was he confident?
No, he wasn't.
He had all sorts of reasons why he wouldn't be good at the job God had for him.
He didn't think people would believe him.
He didn't think he'd be good at being a public speaker.
He didn't know all the answers to people's questions.
He didn't think he was good enough to do what God had for him,
but none of those excuses mattered because God had a plan for Moses and God has a plan for you, too.
Maybe there's something God wants you to do, and it's easy to make excuses.
You don't know how to do it.
It could be really hard.
You're just a kid, but none of those things can stop God.
Remember God used a kid and his lunch to feed 5,000 people.
And God used kids to talk to kings like in the story of Naaman.
And in 1st Timothy 4:12, the Bible even says,
"Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young. Set an example for the believers
in what you say and how you live. Also, set an example in how you love and in what you believe."
Eventually, Moses learned to say yes to God, and we can, too.
Amazing things happened when Moses said yes to God.
Here's one of those stories.
So here's where we are in the story, the Israelites had been
slaves for years and years, and they wanted out.
So they cried out to God, "Rescue us."
But Pharaoh wouldn't let them go.
No.
So God sent some trouble to Pharaoh.
First God turned the Egyptians' river to blood, but that didn't work on Pharaoh.
No.
Then he made frogs invade Egypt.
There were frogs everywhere.
No.
Then God sent zillions of gnats and flies, but still Pharaoh wouldn't let the Israelites go.
No.
So God decided to punish Pharaoh more.
He sent sickness and horrible boils to appear on people's skin.
But still Pharaoh didn't obey.
So God sent hailstones, that's pieces of ice falling from the sky.
Next, he sent a swarm of locusts.
Now those were like the flies and gnats, only these guys ate all the food in Egypt
and still Pharaoh said
Next was complete darkness, no light.
And finally God told Pharaoh that if he didn't obey and let the Israelites go, all
of the firstborn in Egypt would die unless lamb's blood had been painted on the family's doorpost.
That did it.
When Pharaoh's son died, because Pharaoh didn't obey,
the leader finally said to the Israelites, "Go."
So that very night, the Israelites left.
They didn't know which way to go or where they were headed, but God had promised them something.
He said, "I will show you a new way, a new land and a new home."
So to help them out, God sent a huge cloud for the Israelites to follow.
A cloud and a pillar of smoke stretched up to the sky during the day.
The cloud shaded them from the heat in the desert.
And at night, it glowed with warmth to keep them safe and warm while they slept.
When it was time to move, the cloud moved in front of them.
And when it was time to rest, the cloud stopped.
The Israelites walked and walked and walked
until God led his people through the desert to the edge of a great sea.
They were wondering how will we cross the water
when suddenly they heard the sound of thundering and pounding.
It sounded like horse hooves.
Pharaoh had changed his mind again.
He wanted the Israelites back and now Pharaoh's army was chasing after the Israelites.
The Israelites didn't know what to do.
They were stuck with a giant sea in front of them and an army behind them, and it was coming fast.
They panicked.
The water was too deep to walk through and too far and long to swim through.
They didn't have boats or horses, and the soldiers were getting closer and closer and closer.
But Moses told them God will make a way for us to escape.
And then something strange happened, something they had never seen before.
The cloud moved behind the people and hid them from the Egyptians.
God told Moses to raise his hands and his staff, and God sent a strong wind to blow on the water.
The wind blew all night long.
It blew some of the water to the left and some to the right until
there were two towering walls of water and right in the middle was dry land.
The Israelites took a step and another step and another step until all of the
Israelites had walked right through right where all those enormous waves had been.
God had rescued the Israelites again, and it wouldn't be the last time he did that.
God would save them again once and for all,
but that comes later, and I can't wait for you to hear that story.
That story is amazing.
God used Moses to do something that seemed impossible.
He divided an entire sea and made it into dry land for Moses and God's people to escape from danger.
Moses wasn't any different than he had been before.
Maybe he still stammered when he spoke.
Maybe he still lacks some confidence, but those miracles didn't happen because of Moses.
They happened because of God.
God can use you to do incredible things, too.
And he uses us just as we are, mistakes and all, because it's not about who we are,
it's about who God is and the amazing things he can do.