Scrap That - 1 - Making Excuses

Today we are starting a new series called Scrap That. For the next four weeks we are going to look at habits that we really should scrap in order to live the way that God has intended for us.

This week we are looking at making excuses.

Some of us are better at making excuses than others but in reality we all make excuses for why we don’t want to do stuff every day.

The excuses that you make normally might not be as outlandish as the ones we have been making in this game, but excuses no matter how small are still excuses.

Fortunately we are not the only ones to struggle with making excuses. Even Moses, the man who lead the entire nation of Israel out of slavery in Egypt make excuses as we can see in Exodus 4 : 10 - 17.

Here we see Moses being asked by God to perform a task… To speak to Pharaoh, but he tries to come up with excuse of why he can’t do it.

He claims that he is not a good enough speaker, that other people would do a better job than he would.

As we see this offends God who then gets angry. After all he is speaking to the God who made him. So him saying “I’m not good enough” is like saying “You didn’t do a good enough job in making me.

This wasn’t just a one off thing either, we see him making the same excuses again in Exodus 6 : 28 - 30.

What occasions can you think of in your life where you like Moses have made excuses to avoid doing something.

Making excuses for why we cannot do something that God has planned for us is offensive to God, our creator. He never asks us to do anything that with his help we won’t be able to handle.

In order to successfully avoid making excuses we need to make sure that we focus on achieving them using God’s strength rather than relying on our own.

We are reminded in many places in the Bible that God will give us what we need when we take the courage the make the first move. The example that we are going to look at now is Matthew 7 : 7 - 8.

By turning our focus to God rather than ourselves we have the opportunity to turn any excuse into an opportunity to follow him.

It is easy when faced with a difficult situation to immediately find excuses such as I need sticky tape or this is too difficult. If we stopped trying every time there was something difficult we would never get anything done.

Not getting anything done, especially when we are trying to do things for God is of course what the enemy, the devil is hoping for. He tries to distract us from doing the good works that have been prepared for us by pushing excuses our way.

We need to stand strong, trust God and not let excuses get in the way.

There is one last example of excuses that we are going to look at, which we can find in Luke 14 : 16 - 24.

In this parable see a guy who is throwing a party. He invites all of his friends in the town to come along. However many of them give a load of pretty rubbish excuses for why they don’t want to go.

So the guy instead invites other people the party instead, this time the poor outsiders in their community. They of course come along, eat the cake and have a great time.

Those who gave excuses then realise that they are missing out on all the fun, but it is too late, they have been struck off the guest list and are sent away.

How do we think this story relates to us today?

If we do not want to miss out on the great things that God has in store for us we to accept God’s invitation, be brave and go. We will have more fun following Gods plan than trying to avoid it.

So we have been thinking a lot about excuses today.

• How they may God feel
• How we can use God’s strength to avoid making excuses
• How we can miss out on great things by making excuses.

Let’s finish in prayer. Let’s ask God to help us avoid making excuses so that we can live the life that God intends for us.