SERMON NOTES

Unmuted: Unmute Your Yes

In Durban, a bus driver named Albert Phenyani stopped his bus to let an elderly passenger off. Instead of closing the doors and continuing on his route, he got off himself and helped that passenger cross the road safely. Someone watching from a nearby bakery was so moved by what they saw that they went back to the CCTV footage to save the moment.

He wasn’t on a stage. He wasn’t leading a conference or preaching a sermon. He had a bus to drive and a route to complete. But he also had a pair of hands that could help someone cross the road — and he used them.

The same hands that held the steering wheel were the hands that made a difference. That is the question at the heart of this message: what is that in your hand?

God Starts With What You Already Have

In Exodus 4, God has already appeared to Moses through the burning bush. He has called him to return to Egypt and lead the Israelites out of slavery. But Moses is stuck in the objections — what if they don’t believe me, what if they don’t listen, what if it all goes wrong?

God’s response cuts through all of it with a simple question: “What is that in your hand?”

A staff. An ordinary shepherd’s staff that Moses had carried countless times, used to guide sheep and navigate the wilderness. Something so familiar he probably never gave it a second thought.

And that is often our problem. The things most familiar to us are the things we value least. We overlook our own gifts precisely because they come naturally to us. We measure what we have against what someone else seems to carry and conclude we don’t have much to offer.

But God doesn’t always begin by giving you something new. Sometimes He begins by asking what He can do with what you already have.

Someone has the ability to make a new family feel welcome. Someone knows how to help things run smoothly behind the scenes. Someone is gifted with children, comfortable with technology, skilled at organising, or naturally good at putting people at ease. These are not small things — they are exactly the kinds of gifts that hold a community together. Stop comparing your staff with somebody else’s sword. Moses didn’t need a sword to begin the assignment God had given him. He needed to respond with what he had. And you don’t need someone else’s gift to make a difference with your availability.

1 Peter 4:10 puts it plainly: “Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.” The question is not whether your gift looks like someone else’s. The question is whether you’re willing to use what God has entrusted to you.

What You Hold Is Not the Same as What You Surrender

God’s instruction to Moses was not complicated: “Throw it on the ground.” Moses threw the staff down, it became a snake, and he ran from it. Then God told him to pick it up by the tail. He did — and it became a staff again.

You can spend your whole life holding potential without ever putting it to purpose. You can know you’re capable of something and never make yourself available. The difference between a gift held and a gift surrendered is the difference between possibility and impact.

That same staff went on to feature in some of the defining moments of Israel’s story. In Exodus 14, with the Egyptian army closing in and the Red Sea blocking the way forward, God told Moses to raise his staff and stretch his hand over the water — and the sea divided. In Exodus 17, when the people were thirsty in the wilderness and there was no water, God told Moses to strike the rock with the staff — and water came out. The ordinary shepherd’s tool became the instrument of extraordinary things, not because of what it was, but because Moses kept making it available.

A gift can remain unused in your hands. But when you surrender it, it can become a blessing in someone else’s life.

God Can Use Where You’ve Been

There is one more dimension to Moses’ story that is easy to miss. When God called him at the burning bush, He didn’t give him a completely new life story to work from. He called him back toward something he had already experienced.

Moses had been raised in Pharaoh’s household. He knew Egypt from the inside — its language, its culture, its structures. Then his life took a dramatic turn, he fled to Midian, built a new life, and spent years tending sheep. His days in Egypt must have felt like another lifetime entirely. And perhaps he assumed that chapter was closed.

But God’s call in Exodus 3:10 was direct: “I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.” The man who had left Egypt was being sent back — and everything he had experienced there was now part of his qualification for the assignment.

2 Corinthians 1:3–4 captures the principle: “The God of all comfort comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.” What God has worked in you can become something He works through you.

Maybe you know what it feels like to walk into a church for the first time and wonder if you belong, to look around hoping someone would speak to you. Now when you see a new family at the door, you notice them — because you remember. That memory is not just history. It is a gift. Maybe you’ve walked through a difficult season, developed a skill over years, raised children, worked with people, navigated hard things. None of it is wasted. Your Egypt season may be exactly what equips you for someone else’s.

What Is That in Your Hand?

Serving in a church is not about filling positions on a roster. It is about people — the child in the kids’ ministry who needs someone to care, the new family who needs someone to welcome them, the young person who needs someone to listen.

You may be looking at your hands and thinking you don’t have much. But maybe you have a willing heart. Maybe you have a Sunday you can offer. Maybe you’re good at something you’ve never thought of as a gift because it comes so naturally.

Don’t disqualify yourself before you’ve even explored the possibilities. Your first yes doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to be willing.

Moses had a staff. God asked one question and changed the course of history.

What is in your hand? And what might God do when you finally say yes? It’s time to unmute your yes.