The Things We Go Through

Today is Pentecost Sunday and I have a Pentecostal Confession to make.

I was a bad pentecostal this year. I did not put Pentecost Sunday on my preaching calendar.

And I did not prepare a sermon from Acts chapter 2.

Instead I planned to begin our Relaunch Sermon Series today.

The series is called “The Journey Ahead: From Identity Crisis To Missional Community”

It is a survey of the Book of Exodus

The series is designed to equip us and excite us for the Relaunch of our vision as God has given it to us for the next season of the church.

But, the Lord has comforted me this morning that this sermon series is Pentecostal in the truest sense of the term.

The outpouring of the Holy Spirit was not about church folks shouting and speaking in tongues.

The outpouring of the Holy Spirit was about empowering the church to be a witness for Jesus in the world.

Pentecost Sunday is a celebration of the day that God shaped a rag-tag group of 120 disciples into a Missional People called the church.

The shaping of a missional people is exactly what the book of Exodus is about.

Now somebody will say, I thought Exodus was about how God delivered Israel out of Egypt.

If we view Exodus, simply as a freedom narrative we pluck it out of its place in the redemption narrative of the scriptures.

Exodus is not merely the story of a great deliverance. It is the story of a great delivery (as in birthing).

Exodus is not just a story of how Israel escaped, it is the story of how Israel was established.

Exodus is not just a liberation narrative, Exodus is a formation narrative.

Exodus is the story of how God shaped a rag-tag group of about 70 souls into a missional people called Israel and it prefigures what God would do several thousand years later in the upstairs suite of a house in Jerusalem.

So it is good and right for us to begin this sermon series today on Pentecost Sunday.

So this morning, I want to kickoff the series with a sermon from Exodus chapter 1 verse 1 through chapter 2 verse 15

(which we have already heard read)

The title of message today “The Things We Go Through”

How many know that God’s people go through some things?

And don’t actually try to pursue some purpose in God…then we really go through some things.

And church, I don’t know how to break it to you, but

If we are going to follow God on this Relaunch journey, we are going to go through some things.

If you are going to follow God on the journey He has planned for your life, you are going to go through some things.

But, beloved, you don’t have to worry, you don’t have to fret, and you don’t have to be afraid.

I’d like to take the balance of the time simply to exhort you from the text along these lines.

PRAYER

The first exhortation is this: Don’t Be Discouraged: God People Go Through Rough Seasons

The narrative of Exodus starts with a shift in the season.

When Israel first came to Egypt, it was all to the G.

For about two centuries (the seventeenth and sixteenth centuries BC), Egypt had was ruled by an occupying dynasty known as the Hyksos, who were of Semitic origin (like the Hebrews)

It was a Semic Pharaoh who looked like the Hebrews. And put Joseph second in command in Egypt.

Around 1550 BC, a native Egyptian warrior named Ahmoses I came to the throne in Upper Egypt, and began to expel the Hyksos and reunite Egypt under his sole monarchy.

This was the new Pharaoh to whom Joseph meant nothing.

He was the one who concocted the strategy of oppression.

He was afraid that these Semetic descendants of Jacob would join forces with their ethnic brethren and try to retake Egypt.

Surely, as the heavy hand of oppression began to press upon the people, the thought must have entered somebody’s mind:

Was Joseph wrong to invite Jacob? Was Jacob wrong to agree to come?

Did we miss God?

But, these very events were foretold to Abraham

Ge 15:13-14: Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. 14 But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions.

Egypt was part of the promise.

This was the right place. But, it was a rough season.

Somebody followed what you know was the leading of the Holy Spirit

And maybe things started off pretty good, but now the season seems to have shifted.

Job/Career

Marriage

Ministry

Education

Beloved, can I tell you that you can be in the right place and experience a rough season?!?

Don’t you be discouraged this morning.

The Hebrew Boys were in the right place when they were in the Burning fiery furnace

Daniel was in the right place when he was in the Lion’s Den

Paul was in the right place when he was being Shipwrecked and beaten

Jesus was in the right place when he was hanging on Calvary’s Cross

If you are inside of the will of God, then you are in the right place; even if you are experiencing a rough season.

The second exhortation is this: Don’t You Despair: God’s People Go Through Hard Trials

The text tells us that even under the heavy hand of oppression, the Hebrew people keep multiplying.

So Pharoah sharpens his attack against the people of God.

First he tries to get the Hebrew midwives to sell out for access.

These women attended the births of Egyptian women.

Pharaoh tried to get these women who served inside the master's house to think that they were better than the servants in the field.

Shout out to these two Hebrew midwives for not selling out

They understood that access is not equality…access is not equity.

Beloved, if your access comes at the price of your people, it ain’t worth it. (Another sermon for another time)

After Pharoah couldn’t recruit any sellouts, he commissioned vigilantes.

He deputized every single Egyptian as a state executioner.

Imagine living in a land where somebody could come into your house…take your son and murder him…and you couldn’t do anything about it…and you knew the state wouldn’t do anything about it.

And we tend to read the birth of Moses through a triumphalist lens

We read back onto the story and we read from the perspective of Moses…and we see a great delivery being born.

But, if you stand in the story and read from the perspective of the characters, we can see the pain of these two Levite parents.

They couldn’t have a baby shower and send out birth announcements…they had to hide their baby.

The oppression of the society in which lived stripped them of the dignity of providing a quality life for their son.

No education

No sports

No birthday parties

THE BEST THEY COULD DO IS TO PUT THE BOY IN BASKET AND FLOAT HIM DOWN THE RIVER.

Then she had to nurse her son as an infant knowing everyday that as soon as he was old enough, he would be taken away from her.

This Levite father saw his son given the name Moses

remember the name of the Pharaoh who began the oppression, Ahmoses

His son was given the name of his oppressor.

These were difficult days. These were very hard trials.

But what I like is that Moses is the writer of the first 5 books of the Old Testament

And I don’t think that it was a mistake that Moses used the same Hebrew word, “te-vah” or “ark” to describe the vessel in which God saved Noah from the flood and the vessel in which his mom saved him.

I believe that Moses is saying

Everything died in the flood, but God preserved enough in the ark for a new life to spring up.

And in Egypt, there was a flood of trials…and a lot of things died in that flood. But, God preserved enough in the ark for deliverance to take place.

Beloved you may be in the midst of a flood of trails in your life, but let me encourage you that God has preserved in the ark of safety, to bring you into a new season in your life.

The third and final exhortation that I want to give you is this: Don’t You Be Dismayed: God’s People Go Through Failure and Setbacks

So Moses grows up and he begins to develop a holy discontent with the state of oppression of his people.

He goes out and he tries to do something about it. And it just goes terribly wrong.

He wanted to be a liberator of his people. But, his people turned on him.

He was planning the revolution, but J. Edgar Hoover had tapped his phones and ruined his plans.

I’ve heard preachers suggest that Moses made a mistake here.

He “moved before his moment”

He “tried before his time”

But, I don’t read any blame in the text.

Failure…absolutely.

Blame…not at all.

I think what we take from the account is that sometimes things don’t work out the first time you try.

You have to wait sometimes.

You have to develop some new skills

You have to form some new relationships.

You have to develop some new strategies.

I don’t know that we see any blame in the text. But, what I do know is that Exodus chapter 2 verse 15 is not end of the story,

That same Moses that we leave sitting by the well today; God is going to send him back to Egypt next week

And he’ll try a few more time with only bad results

But, before the story is over, he is going to lead his people out of that bondage.

And beloved, I want you to know that the failure chapter of your life is not the end of the story.

In the final analysis, the call to be God’s people does not mean that we never go through anything.

The call to be God’s people means that we Don’t Just Go Through It, we Grow Through It.

I don’t know if you believe me

Maybe you need to hear it in the words of James, the Lord’s brother: ”My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.“ (‭‭James‬ ‭1‬:‭2‬-‭4‬ ‭NKJV‬‬)

Maybe you don’t believe me or James. Well, listen to the words spoken by Joseph when God first brought Abraham’s descendants into Egypt.

Joseph was at the same time giving a testimony to his brothers and speaking a prophecy over his children.

He said, “you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good”

Beloved, when the devil means evil against you, God will turn it around for your good.

Maybe you’re going through a trying time in your marriage…

Maybe you’ve already gone through a divorce…

Perhaps you’re going through a sickness in your body…

Maybe you’ve gone through the loss of a loved…

Maybe you’re going through some financial challenges…

Maybe you’re going through some drama on your job…

Maybe you’re going through mental and emotional pain…

Maybe you’re going through difficulties with your family and your children…

YOU OUGHT TO TELL YOUR NEIGHBOR, “I’M NOT JUST GOING THROUGH IT, I’M GROWING THROUGH IT”

Beloved, as we relaunch this church, we may have to go through…

Hard work and sacrifice.

Setbacks and conflict.

Disappointment and maybe even a little pain.

But, if you are committed not only to Go through this Relaunch experience, but to Grow through it, I want to pray for you.

I want to ask God to manifest His presence among us and give us power from on high to become a missional people in Chicagoland

Just as He did with the children of Israel.

Just as He did with those 120 disciples at Pentecost.

If you’ve already signed up to participate on a Relaunch working group, I want you to come first.