Calling 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 Ex

One of the analogies that I use for the old testament is that as you read it what it is doing from the very first pages until we get to the new testament is that it is building a staircase…that staircase leads to Jesus.

And I think that a study of Moses will help us to see Jesus more clearly, I think it will help us to understand the whole Bible better and in a way that will help us understand what God is up to in the whole world even right now!

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…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

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.

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.

If anyone was curious from a 30,000 ft view the theme of Genesis is found in 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!

The beginnings of Exodus show that while God’s people are walking through difficulties

So Pharoah gets annoyed that his plans to end Israel only end up blessing Israel with more kids so here is what happens next

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...

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…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

This is a new creation story

The Ark: Moses is going through the waters of Chaos to bring a whole new life

A sense of Destiny:

Moses was saved from a watery grave

Moses’ efforts at producing justice were a failure: He is not the messiah, he would have to rely on God

Moses was a failed savior, a murderer & a fugitive living on the run and still God would use him

This helped him to prepare for God’s work, God’s way

We want Gods work but in our way and in our time