The Life Of Moses #1 I. The Shock Of The Story s Opening: The story opens with God s people in Egypt suffering, in the very place where God Himself

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1 The Life Of Moses #1 I. The Shock Of The Story s Opening: The story opens with God s people in Egypt suffering, in the very place where God Himself had brought them. A. The story begins with vs. 5b Joseph was already in Egypt But why? 1. Because Joseph s brothers had sold him into slavery! (Genesis 37) 2. The rest of the people of Israel are in Egypt because of a famine that drove them to Egypt to beg for food only to discover their brother Joseph was now in charge of the food distribution. They freak out when they realize the brother they enslaved in now in charge of their fate, whether they live or die. But Joseph shows them mercy and testifies to his belief in the sovereign power of God when he says to them (in Genesis 50) What you intended for evil, God intended for good. And what God intends always prevails! And the brother they despised became the one used to save them! (Like Jesus the rejected One who becomes the Savior) B. So, God s people are where He Himself brought them and they are suffering! A new Pharoah comes to power and Israel begins to be persecuted. Does this bother you? If there were ever a time when Israel was smack dab in the middle of God s will it was then yet they are suffering! Perhaps we need to revise the typical belief of many Christians that as long as you are in God s will everything will be great. This story teaches us clearly that suffering and being in the will of God are not only compatible, they are often inseparable. How does this hit you? Some of you are new here and maybe are already wondering What was I thinking? Some of you, and some of your friends and roommates are loving it here, but some of you, and some of your friends and roommates are really struggling because you are thinking I thought God led me here, but why is it so hard? But this is the story God leads us into all the time. Please don t assume that when things are hard, or when you are suffering, that somehow you must have missed God s will. And don t assume that He must have abandoned you. God s will and suffering are typically inseparable. It was certainly that was for Jesus. You see God s greatest, most important stories are the ones where His will prevails through suffering, not by avoiding it. And that leads us to the next important thing we see in this story The Hope That Runs Through It.

2 II. The Hope Of The Story Is That Nothing Can Thwart God s Plan The way God shows this through story is irony. Irony in the Bible regularly points to God s sovereign hand at work bringing unexpected, but amazingly appropriate results. Irony hints at consummation and is a foreshadowing of the true final justice that is coming. Even in the midst of the brokenness, and the longing til Christ makes all things right, God gives little joyful delights in these ironies. 1. Notice how God prevails over Egypt (the world s greatest superpower at the time): In vs. 10, Pharoah says we gotta do something about these people lest they multiply but in vs. 12 we see that in spite of the persecution and the attempted genocide, God s people are still multiplying! (And this is an echo of the command in the garden to be fruitful and multiply. God blesses by giving what He commands.) 2. Notice the way God uses the most unlikely heroes for a world in which women were often regarded as little more than property. Pharaoh, the most important leader in the world, is not even named. Who gets named? Hebrew slave women, the midwives, Moses mother and sister, and Pharaoh s daughter! The truly significant ones are the ones who are named! And this is upside down from everything in this culture. God uses the civil disobedience of the midwives, and the shrewdness of the Moses mom and sister to accomplish His plan. And God seems to take delight in demonstrating just how sovereign He is with powerful, hilarious irony. He works it out so that Moses actual mother gets paid by the Egyptians to raise her own son as an Egyptian prince with all the privileges! Pharaoh intends to kill sons so that his kingdom will prevail, but God uses daughters to protect the son who will deliver Israel. (Alec Motyer) 3. God brings salvation, again, through an Ark. The three arks in the Bible Noah is saved through an Ark. And the key point is that you can t steer an ark, you get put in it and God directs it where He wants it to go. Moses mom places him in an ark too. The word basket is the Hebrew word for ark Moses mom knows the story of Noah! And now she has to trust her child to God. Only God can deliver her child and bring the ark to where He wants it to go. And the Nile is the Great River God! But that is no problem for God. He delivers Moses to safety through the ark.

3 Later in his life, God instructs Moses to build another Ark, the Ark of the Covenant. And what is incredible is what God tells Moses to put inside of the Ark. Moses is told to put the staff that he used to bring the plagues on Egypt, the symbol of God s judgment power, Moses is told to put some of the bread of life, the manna, in the ark, and he is told to put a copy of the covenant ((not just the ten commandments). In other words, God Himself goes into the ark! In doing this, God is foreshadowing what He will do in Jesus. In the person of Jesus, God himself goes in the place where He doesn t want to go, submits fully to God s will, and brings salvation! He can be trusted because He himself has submitted to God s will and wrought salvation for His people! Illustration: As some of you know, 10 years ago we had one of the most incredible experiences of our lives when we were able to adopt our little girl from China. And being part of the adoption community you hear all kinds of things that you never knew before. For many years, China has had a 1-child policy for families. And it is common knowledge in China that is typically the Christian families that are the ones who abandon their children in public places. Now, wait, lest you wonder how they could do that you need to understand that most of the children that families are unable or not wanting to keep are aborted or abandoned. The Christians generally are the ones who give their children up. They often place them in a basket in a public place, a shopping center or bus station, and typically watch from a distance to make sure the child is found and that the police are called so that the child will be taken to the orphanage. Can you imagine that? But what really blew me away was what they told us at the American Consulate They told us that after we swore our oath and our daughter became our girl, and an American citizen, that we would exit the consulate and there would be a huge crowd of people pressing in to look at us. When we asked why, our guide said, that many of the mothers come down to the consulate hoping to catch a glimpse of their own child going to a better life in America! It is almost unimaginable for us to think about the trust involved in giving up your own child! But God knows exactly what that feels like. He did it Himself. What is God asking you to trust Him for?

4 But let me tell you something even more incredible if you are struggling to trust God, if you are full of fear, or if you have done things you are so ashamed of, things that you believe must forever disqualify you to be used by God, then you need to see the next important point from this story III. Not even the weakness and sin and God s servant Moses can thwart God s plan! Once again we see sovereignty and irony in the story. 1. We see God s sovereignty in the fact that even Moses murder of the Egyptian, and the subsequent fleeing to the desert does not thwart God s plan. Again there is great irony in the story the Hebrew man asks Moses Who made you a prince and a judge over us? yet that is what God plans to do. However it must in God s way and in God s timing. Moses cannot deliver his people by the strength of his own hands. 2. While God Is At Work, It Often Looks Like Everything Has Fallen Apart God s ways are mysterious! We see God s sovereign hand so clearly in the beginning of the story, but then it looks like Moses has come to ruin. Even with all of his unique training being raised by his own family to identify with the Hebrews, yet also receiving the full training of an Egyptian prince we find him sitting in the desert as an 80 year old sheepherder! It looks like God s plans have come to utter ruin. So often God s ways emerge out of what looks like disaster and God s deliverance out of what seems like an impossible situation. Moses has been rejected by both the Egyptians and the Hebrews and he has fled to the desert. But God is not done with him yet. And He is not done with you. God delights in using weak people to do His will. The story of William Cowper God uses the most unlikely people to accomplish His purposes 2. We this most clearly in Jesus the most unlikely of deliverers!

5 Jesus too was born under threat of death, with a maniacal ruler intent on killing all the boy babies to hold onto his own power, but was spared by God s power. Jesus too fled to the desert and was rejected by His own people whom He came to rescue! Finally as Jesus breathed His last as He hung on a cross, it looked to everyone like God s plans had come to utter ruin. But take heart, God specializes in using the most unlikely of saviors and the most unlikely of means death on a cross to gain all the glory for Himself! Conclusion: Jesus Himself said that if you believed Moses, then you would believe in Him, because (Jesus said) Moses wrote about me! (John 5:46) This story doesn t just tell us about Moses, it tells us about our God, it tells us about His character that is even more perfectly seen in Jesus. I love the end of our passage, 4 verbs in vs God heard their groaning and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel, and God knew. If you are nervous and struggling as you begin this new journey this fall, you are in good company, and the Life of Moses is a good thing to study. If you want to be ale to help people who are nervous and struggling, this is a good book to study. May our hope be in these words Luther said so well, I know not where He leads, but well do I know my Guide.