Preparing the Faithful Servant

Background

Today we are starting a new character study on Moses.

The reason why I want to study Moses with you is that in order to look at Moses you have to look at the Exodus,

Moses and the Exodus are the backdrop for so much in the bible, especially Jesus’ ministry. But more than that. Through the exodus story we see one of the first places in the Bible where God clearly reveals his character

And more than that, Moses is a character study of how to lead through difficult times. And I feel like this is what we need as a the people of God. How do we lead through turbulent times?

So I am going to jump right in today because whenever we start a series we need to Intro it and for us today we are going to cover over 80 years of Moses’ life and everything that happened before so we have 480 years to cover and I am going to give myself 10 minutes to do it!

Intro

So after Adam and eve, the world descends into sin. It is totally corrupt…There is a new city built around human ingenuity and talent, its a city called Babel…designed to make human names great…And God scattered those people

And out of that city he calls one Man, Abraham and makes a new covenant with him…That he will take this man’s family and give them a place to live and though this family the whole world will be blessed.

So Abraham had descendants and one of them was Joseph....Long story short, Joseph was sold as a slave to Egypt, where he ended up becoming second in command. When there was a huge famine, Jospeh had already figured it out…So Egypt was thriving in the midst of a famine and all other nations were blindsided by it

So Joseph’s brothers go to Egypt…The family multiplies and spends 400 years there…and right before he dies Joseph Says this

Genesis 50:24–25 NIV

Then Joseph said to his brothers, “I am about to die. But God will surely come to your aid and take you up out of this land to the land he promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” And Joseph made the Israelites swear an oath and said, “God will surely come to your aid, and then you must carry my bones up from this place.”

So for 400 years the people of God would live in Egypt and it would go from a good relationship to a relationship of becoming enslaved

When ethnic groups in societies are kept separate from each other then all kinds of suspicion is fostered

It creates an environment where tension builds and eventually they clash

Exodus 1:8–14 NIV

Then a new king, to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power in Egypt. “Look,” he said to his people, “the Israelites have become far too numerous for us. Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country.” So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh. But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites and worked them ruthlessly. They made their lives bitter with harsh labor in brick and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields; in all their harsh labor the Egyptians worked them ruthlessly.

So when a new King comes to power and he is threatened by a group of people, he re-orders them in society and puts them in a caste system…with slave masters over them.

The fear here is that we have a growing army that could turn on us if they were to join forces with another country that wanted to invade Egypt

You have to remember that in the accent world, Egypt had it going on…I mean yes there is dessert but there is a huge fertile delta area, massive river and it boarders the ocean....I mean there is always food in Egypt

And what the text says is that even under sever oppression from the king of Egypt they are thriving and multiplying

Exodus 1:7 NIV

but the Israelites were exceedingly fruitful; they multiplied greatly, increased in numbers and became so numerous that the land was filled with them.

This story of the Exodus which is the foundational story of all of israel begins with a reminder that even though they are walking through extraordinary difficult times, God is still blessing them! in the same way that they were blessed in the garden.

One of the things that we see that is just genius about the Bible, is that most stories in the first five books of the bible are borrowing from Genesis 1-3. They are re-telling the same narrative…We know this because the Bible will borrow Hebrew words and phrases from the garden and sprinkle them around in other stories

It is a reminder that we are God’s Eden people and that he wants us!

So the beginning of the book of exodus is a continuation of Genesis…And it is a continuation of the theme of the whole book of Genesis.

The entire theme of Genesis can be found in one verse…and it continues on into exodus

It is found in the context of Joseph telling his brothers, hey don’t worry about selling me into slavery 28 years ago…look what God did!

Genesis 50:20

Genesis 50:20 NIV

You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.

In Hebrew he says, what you intended for Ra God makes Tov.

Ra is evil and Tov is good

And although you can not see it in english these two words are just littered thorough the book of Genesis...

so it is this great reminder almost that God absorbs the Ra of our life and returns it for Tov...

And this is what we see happening in Egypt, even though the Israelites are now slaves, even though they are working twice as hard, that God is somehow still bringing Tov out of Egypt’s ability to bring Ra!

So Chapter 1 in Exodus has to be seen as a continuation of Genesis and its theme

What man intends for evil, God intends for good. (Gen 50:20)

This is a theme that caries right through Exodus because the Egyptians will continually get hammered by Pharoah and they will suffer…But it is precisely that suffering that leads them to the promise land!

I think it is impotrant to camp out on this point for a second.

God wants good for you, he intends good for you

But it doesn't mean you are free from hard times!

Joseph was in slavery for 28 years away from his family, the Jews in Egypt were in Egypt for 400 years before they were freed...

I think we might have this idea that since God is good, we don’t have to experience anything bad...

No! See that is not what this point means. God will take the evil that has happened to you and use it for his glory...

God never intends for evil to happen to you, but he can turn it around and use it for good!

This is quite literally what redemption is in the kingdom of God.

Exodus reminds us that walking with God takes faith! Because He is going to allow you to be faced with trouble and hard times but its all intended for Good!

So as you go through difficulties and problems in life…do so with a sense of expectation…God uses these things ultimately for you Good, it is who God is....

After-all isn’t this the story of the cross?

That Jesus had to walk through unimaginable evil so that we can experience unimaginable freedom?

So what Man intends for Evil, God intends for good!

So let’s get into this a little more

Exodus 1:15–22 NIV

The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah, “When you are helping the Hebrew women during childbirth on the delivery stool, if you see that the baby is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live.” The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live. Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, “Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?” The midwives answered Pharaoh, “Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive.” So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous. And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own. Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people: “Every Hebrew boy that is born you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live.”

So the almighty and all powerful Pharaohs plans are foiled by a couple of Hebrew midwives who by the way are named in the Bible when we don’t even know this Pharaohs name...

We know Shiphrah and Puah…Their names mean Beautiful and Sparkle…They are radent before God because they are protecting life!

So these two are literally told to commit infant-aside (unfortunately not super uncommon in the ancient world)

And by the way when the Bible does this with a king or a pharoah one of the points is that he is just acting like any other pharoah who is drunk on power…

The Pharoah becomes an archetype in the rest of the Bible…Nebuchadnezzar…He is just like Pharoah…Pilate, Cesar…All little Pharaohs

This is just the way it is for world leaders who need to stay in control…And you don’t even need to name them because the story is all the same

And see just another example of what humans intend for harm, God flips it around and uses it to bless others

So now we get into the birth Narrative of Moses…And we are going to cover a ton of his life here so flip with me to Exodus 2 now.

Exodus 2:1–8 NIV

Now a man of the tribe of Levi married a Levite woman, and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months. But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him. Then Pharaoh’s daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the riverbank. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her female slave to get it. She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him. “This is one of the Hebrew babies,” she said. Then his sister asked Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?” “Yes, go,” she answered. So the girl went and got the baby’s mother.

So this starts with telling is that Moses is from the tribe of Levi. See from Moses’ line would come all of the priest. All of the people who interceed on behalf of the people to God

So anyone who reads this book will just get that Moses is kind of the chief priest…I mean Aaron, his brother will really be the priest...

But this shows us why the levites are so impotrant...

Because in the same way that Moses would go to God and speak and then tell the people what God said…this is what the priests would all do down the road.

It is why moses is so impotrant!

So then because of the edict to kill the little boys, Moses’ mom in order to spare him put him in a basked with tar and floated him down the river…and there is kind of like a huge wink in the text here that Moses just happened to float to where Pharaoh’s daughter was bathing

This was probably intentional...

So this basked with tar that moses is in, there is only one other place in the bible where this word is used, and that is to describe the ark that Noah built…The text actually reads that Moses’ mother put him in an Ark!

I think that the author knew that and that this wasn’t a mistake at all

The author wants you to see this as another Noah’s Ark!

Noah put all of creation on his boat and when the old creation was washed away…It was Noah’s job to bring about a new creation

Now we know the exodus story…Eventually this kid moses who is a baby now in an ark will walk through the red sea and his oppressors will get washed away and he will give them a new way to live…God’s law

he will craft a new people...

What God wants us to see right in the birth narrative is that Through Moses’ life, a new creation will come about!

So again! Pharoah intends the Nile to be a place of death for the Hebrew people but , God actually turns it around and uses it as the way to deliver his people.

What Man intends for Evil…God will use for Good...

Dual Citizenship

moving on from there, what is impotrant to know here is that even though Moses would be nursed by his own mother, he would actually grow up in Pharaohs household.

Knowing the gods of Egypt, the practices of Egypt and all of these things

And we don’t know if moses grows up with the awareness that he is a Hebrew…But he does have this awareness at one point in his life…And I think its more than likely that there were plenty of people in the court of Pharoah who liked to remind moses that he is not really ethnically Egyptian...

I mean if the people surrounding Pharoah were anything like my grandpa....He didn’t mind letting people know that they were not Italian.

So when moses does become aware of who he is, here is what happens next

Exodus 2:11–15 NIV

One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. Looking this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. The next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, “Why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew?” The man said, “Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid and thought, “What I did must have become known.” When Pharaoh heard of this, he tried to kill Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian, where he sat down by a well.

So at one point Moses becomes aware of who he is …He sees an act of injustice…so obviously God has wired moses for justice, so what Moses does is that he takes the act of deliverance into his own hands and notice verse 12

“Looking this way and that and seeing no one”

Moses’ early attempt at deliverance would fail and backfire because they were his plans and not the Lord’s. (Ex 2:11-15)

So we know that Moses knows what he is about to do is wrong....Even though Moses had not yet chiseled into the stone: “Thou shall not murder”....He knew murder was wrong …He looked for cover…Is anyone going to see what I am about to do. Then he hid the body after he killed the Egyptian…You don’t act in secret like that when you know what your doing is the right thing!

Oh then if no one sees then I will be fine…no one will know.

Then he counted on his own people to be complicit in his crime and keep their mouths shut....

But they wouldn't do it.

I mean imagine…your in jail and a guard goes missing…The Israelites weren’t about to cover for Moses....Because when people start getting killed it looks like a slave rebellion, and slave rebellions get put down with violence, so what are the Israelites going to do? Hey it was Moses it wasn’t us!

But see the point of this story is that Moses wanted justice but moses also wanted to be the architect of the way the justice came about.

See the desire for justice is a really Good thing, God has this desire, but We have to let God be the one to deliver the justice!

The next day Moses Saw two hebrews fighting and he went to break it up…Because at his heart, moses is a deliverer! that is who God wired him to be…But see he lost credibility…because even though he thought no one would see his murder…These two knew about Moses...

So moses here has two failed attempts at saving his people!

Lets keep going with the rest of the story

Exodus 2:16–25 NIV

Now a priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came to draw water and fill the troughs to water their father’s flock. Some shepherds came along and drove them away, but Moses got up and came to their rescue and watered their flock. When the girls returned to Reuel their father, he asked them, “Why have you returned so early today?” They answered, “An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds. He even drew water for us and watered the flock.” “And where is he?” Reuel asked his daughters. “Why did you leave him? Invite him to have something to eat.” Moses agreed to stay with the man, who gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses in marriage. Zipporah gave birth to a son, and Moses named him Gershom, saying, “I have become a foreigner in a foreign land.” During that long period, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God. God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them.

So Moses again…Sees these women drawing water get harassed by some shepherds and Moses came and rescued them

This is now three attempts at Justice for Moses in just a few verses.

I think this was a huge lesson for moses later on in the wilderness

I think Moses learned a few things:

Even our best intentions can backfire.

Moses learned that he needed to do God’s work in God’s way.

This is so key…

I think Justice is God’s work…but we want it in our own way…For moses this was violence...

So how do we do God’s work and in God’s way?

This is a tough one, it involves waiting and seeking the Lord!

Now there is another reason why Moses is in Midian:

Identity:

Now when moses goes to Midian, he gets mistaken for an Egyptian…Why?

Because his identity was forged for 40 years in the court of Pharoah!

But see now that Moses is fleeing from his sin and his failure, God takes him to Midian in order to reshape moses...

He needs Moses to shake out of the Egyptian identity and to realize who he is.

So he had to take Moses out of Egypt…and you have to understand that moses didn’t feel like a slave in Egypt…he felt at home there. we know this because it is only after he is on the run that he gets married and has a family and named his first child Gershom: meaning “I have become a foreigner in a foreign land”

This is the first step in Moses identifying with his people...

He had to become a foreigner! Just like his people.....

And the chapter ends with God hearing the cry of the oppressed people....

There are an oppressed people over here and God is reshaping a man out in Midian and they are destined to meet up again...

They are destined to come back together

So Moses was born to Israelites, raised by Egyptians, a failed savior, a murderer and a fugitive, and still God wanted to use him.

As we wrap up the first two chapters of Exodus

Application/Communion

What man has intended for Evil…God can use for Good

This is literally the story of communion

He can take Moses, a fugitive and a murder and he can redeem him and make him new

He can take a people who have no hope and give them a hope!

This is the story of Moses

On that night Jesus took the bread and he passed it around and broke it…and explained that his body is like this bread…and he will take all of the sin and evil of the world onto his own body

take and eat

And then he took the cup and passed it around and said that this was his blood which is poured out for us and that we will be forgiven

Take and Drink

Lord as we celebrate this meal, we celebrate your communion with us. Your desire to have fellowship with your people.

Lord we pray that you would continue to act out of your own character and continue to take the evil and bring about good!

We pray that what you did for moses you will do for us. reshape is and mold us for your kingdom service

Romans 8:28 NIV

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.