Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction:

‌Good morning.

It is so nice to be here with you again; welcome to week four of The Story.

As we journey through what God has been doing and is doing and is going to do, with us, with His people, with the world, beginning with creation.

So, we’ve compared the Bible to a mural in that it tells a single story.

Still, it takes some work on our part to read it that way, to make it so much more than simply a good book, but to understand God’s story and begin to find our place within it.

So, we started out in a garden, and now God is going to work with the Nation of Israel.

Today is the first of three weeks of looking at Moses.

Today is Deliverance, later CH Hornbaker will take you through the rest of the book of Exodus, through which we see God’s covenant with His people, His commandments for holy living, and the following week he’ll finish off the Pentateuch, which means, “the five,” referring to the first five books of the Bible, the most significant books to God’s chosen people, the Israelites.

The first seven chapters of Exodus provide a broad overview of the Israelites’ enslavement in Egypt and their growth in numbers, which eventually leads to their oppression by the Egyptians.

Transition:

But first, I want you to think about something.

What is it that you hope for?

Not only what do you hope for, but what is it that you are doing right now to work towards that hope?

Does anything come to mind?

And maybe it’s simply to not be here anymore!

But you have to be somewhere, doing something; what does that look like?

Now, I’m betting you’ve thought of that, but most people, and perhaps even some of you, struggle with finding hope; we’re not even talking about pursuing it yet.

I propose that fear rules our subconscious.

It’s the most basic instinct, right?

Survival, fight or flight.

We don’t even have to think about it.

Your brain is wired for it; you could be shown 50 images flashed for the same amount of time, a kid, car, snake, sun, rock… but too quick to process; if you could identify any of them, it’s always going to be the ones your brain perceived as a threat.

Left unchecked, it replaces your pursuit of fulfillment.

You’re not thriving; you’re just in survival mode.

That’s a pretty bleak existence.

That’s not what we’re created for.

In my experience, most people aren’t aware of their hopes.

They are, however, intimately familiar with their fears.

Interestingly enough, they’re usually inversely related, but again, the saying goes that “you hit what you aim at, so if you aim at nothing, you’ll hit it every time.”

So don’t focus on your fears, focus on your hopes.

Illustration:

Smoking is a classic example of something people do that is bad for them.

Rather than quitting, some people choose to continue smoking, opting for a quick and easy fix, taking the temporary relief to their stress or boredom, ultimately causing long-term harm to their bodies instead of facing the difficult task of finding a permanent solution.

People continue to smoke despite knowing the harmful effects it has on their health and well-being.

Some people find their comfort in junk food.

Eating because they’re sad, soon enough, they’re sad because they eat instead of routinely exercising and eating healthily.

Others take painkillers instead of exercising to relieve physical pain.

Instead of addressing root causes, people routinely choose the easy route; temporary alleviation of their symptoms.

Each of these examples not only fail to solve any issues in the long term but also exposes us to addiction and second and third-order effects.

Point:

The list goes on and on.

The point is that we are, at times, our own worst enemy if we’re not consciously making the choice to pursue our hope, suffering some sort of Stockholm syndrome, thwarting our own joy because we’re comfortable with the devil we know.

Transition:

If you were here last week, same thing today, and really throughout this series, 17 chapters today, so we have to move quickly, and there’s so much, but in order to really capture the meta-narrative and not lose sight of the forest through the trees so to speak, I want to use the New Testament account, because it also provides interpretation, and that’s just less work for us to do.

Scripture:

Beginning in Acts 7: 17 “As the time was approaching to fulfill the promise that God had made to Abraham, the people flourished and multiplied in Egypt 18 until a different king who did not know Joseph ruled over Egypt.

19 He dealt deceitfully with our race and oppressed our ancestors by making them abandon their infants outside so that they wouldn’t survive.

20 At this time Moses was born, and he was beautiful in God’s sight.

He was cared for in his father’s home for three months.

21 When he was put outside, Pharaoh’s daughter adopted and raised him as her own son.

22 So Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in his speech and actions.

23 “When he was forty years old, he decided to visit his own people, the Israelites.

24 When he saw one of them being mistreated, he came to his rescue and avenged the oppressed man by striking down the Egyptian.

25 He assumed his people would understand that God would give them deliverance through him, but they did not understand.

26 The next day he showed up while they were fighting and tried to reconcile them peacefully, saying, ‘Men, you are brothers.

Why are you mistreating each other?’

27 “But the one who was mistreating his neighbor pushed Moses aside, saying: Who appointed you a ruler and a judge over us? 28 Do you want to kill me, the same way you killed the Egyptian yesterday?

Transition:

Now this is a story all about how

My life got flipped—turned upside down

And I’d like to take a minute, just sit right there

I’ll tell you how I became the prince of a town called Bel-Air.

I just want to plant that seed; I’ll come back to it, but you’ll have to hear me out now.

Exposition:

You see, Moses had tried to hide what he had done.

He was afraid now because his secret had become known.

I don’t know what his hope was; that’s not the point.

Given his actions, he’s probably experiencing some sort of identity crisis, trying to find himself—but he hasn’t met God yet.

He’s operating out of fear.

And don’t get me wrong, fear has its place.

It’s not a great place.

I wouldn’t pitch a tent, camp out, plant a flag, and die on that hill kind of place, but if it helps you realize your predicament, if it keeps you alive, great.

But let’s call it what it is, survival.

This is not thriving.

You know, the discovery channel has this show that I’ve caught a lot of reruns of, “I (Almost) Got Away With It,” anyone familiar with it?

A fairly central theme I’ve been able to discern throughout many of the biographies is a sense of relief when the fugitive is caught.

Fear is a sign.

It’s a decision making itself known to you.

What you with it is what we assign objective value to.

Taking the back roads, avoiding all the signs, that’s not the same thing as maturation.

That’s what I mean when I say fear has its place.

If you simply aren’t fearful of something, that doesn’t mean you’re living a fulfilling life, experiencing God’s joy.

But it is an opportunity.

Scripture:

Exodus 2: 23 After a long time, the king of Egypt died.

The Israelites groaned because of their difficult labor, and they cried out, and their cry for help because of the difficult labor ascended to God. 24 God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.

There’s a parallel process going on here.

Last Sunday, the Israelites were 12 people—now a nation clearly raised with an identity of faith, are drawing to their roots as Moses is going through his own deconstruction/conversion.

Lots of time is passing, our Scripture is moving pretty quickly too.

In verse 17, the daughters of Jethro meet Moses, in 21, Zipporah is marrying him.

Scholars put Moses around 40 when he kills the Egyptian and that he spends the 40 years after that in Midian with Jethro, his father-in-law, a priest.

This, along with Jesus’ time in preparation, both at the Temple as well as the 40 days of temptation before his Baptism, prior to the beginning of his public ministry, Paul’s time with Gamaliel, are all often cited as precedent for vocational training, seminary, what have you, before ordination.

So, Moses is called.

Chapter three recall’s God’s appearance to him from the burning bush, and Moses receives purpose and hope.

Also, lots of fear, but he makes the right choice this time.

He tells Moses to assemble the elders, God’s going to deliver us from Egypt.

Verse 19 says, however, that the “king of Egypt will not allow you to go, even under force from a strong hand.”

This is a pretty hard sell for Moses.

He doesn’t have a great track record with the Hebrew people.