Get Your Mind Right: What To Expect When God Is Working In Your Life

So, we have arrived at the great “plagues narrative” of Exodus.

If you are not familiar with the narrative, there are nine plagues that God brings on Egypt (not including the passover which we will look at next week).

Blood

Frogs

Gnats

Flies

Livestock death

Boils

Hail

Locust

Darkness

Over and again Pharaoh relents and agrees to let the people of God only to renege on his commitment.

A lot of things can be preached from the narrative of the plagues of Egypt.

But, I think that one of the greatest contributions of this text to this Relaunch as Chicago Embassy Church Network is becoming Ambassador Church and really to our lives in 2024 is that we learn from this text what to expect from God as He works in the lives and affairs of humankind.

Beloved, the most important decision that you will ever make is how you will respond to God’s work in your life.

There are many people in the world…there are many people in the church who have responded the wrong way to God’s work in our lives.

We have responded in anger

We have responded with disappointment

We have become afraid

We have become frustrated

And at the root of most of our wrong responses is an unmet expectation of God.

We expected God to do one thing and God did something else.

We expected God to be in this place, or to bless this relationship, to grant his request and it did not go the way we desired or expected.

We think we want God to work in our lives. But, we don’t often take into account what we should expect when God starts working

And so I want to preach a sermon today called, “Get Your Mind Right: What To Expect When God Is Working In Your Life”

PRAYER

Expect God To Work Through His Surpassing Power

We saw last week - in the prelude to this conflict - how the wise men and sorcerers and magicians of Egypt were able to imitate the sign that Aaron did (turning his staff into a serpent).

And this continues for the first two plagues (the Blood in the Nile and frogs).

But, then when they attempt to throw dust in the air to make gnats, the text tells us that they are not able to do it.

You see beloved, there are rogue spirits on the loose in this world and they have some compelling arguments and even some nifty tricks.

But, let’s not get it twisted. God has no rival power in heaven or in the earth or under the earth.

Jehovah is set apart and completely unequaled in any way

There is no one like Him or beside Him.

We must not read this narrative as some grand cosmic conflict in which Yaweh rose to the occasion and defeated Pharaoh.

God did not raise up on Pharaoh

God came down for Israel

Exodus 3:7-8

7 Then the LORD said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, 8 and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians

Friend, whatever you might be facing in your life, remember that your problem is down here and God is up here.

God does not rise to cancer…God must condescend to deal with cancer because God is greater than cancer.

God does not rise to poverty…God must condescend to deal with poverty because God is greater than poverty.

God does not rise to intervene in the government affairs of the United States of America…God must condescend to deal with the United States of America because God is greater than the United States of America.

God does not rise to any of your problems…God must condescend to deal with all of your problems because God is so much greater than any of your problems.

Don’t ever expect God to freak out with you about your problem.

God is working with His Surpassing Power.

There is literally nothing that God cannot do.

Expect God To Work For His Sacred Possession

Seven times God’s command is delivered to pharaoh in the same words, “Let my people go that they may worship me”

The verb that most of our translations have rendered as “worship” is the Hebrew ‘abad’

This is the same verb that has been used in the earlier chapters with the when referring to the hard labor endured by the Hebrews as they “served” pharaoh.

God is saying to Pharaoh, “you have forced these people to serve you. But, they are My people and they must be free to serve Me!”

The book of Exodus lays the foundational text for “liberation theology” and informs much of the Christian social justice work that has taken place and is taking place throughout the world.

The Christian anti-slavery movement in Europe and in America harkened to the Exodus narrative.

The Civil Rights Movement harkened to the Exodus narrative.

And today when Christians talk about racial justice, police reform, or gender equity, they often have Exodus as a formative framework.

“Go down, Moses”, declares the Freedom Song, “way down in Egypt land. And tell old Pharaoh to let my people go!”

You see, from a biblical perspective, issues of social justice grow out of the issue of spiritual jurisdiction.

Injustice occurs when powerful individuals and institutions make illegitimate claims on the time and resources of the people God created, called, and redeemed.

Expect God to work in your life to create room for you to pursue the Kingdom of God and His righteousness.

When corporate profits are inflated, but the wages are so low that people have to spend all of their time working leaving no time to build families, cultivate community, or participate in worship; EXPECT TO HEAR GOD SAYING “LET MY PEOPLE GO”.

When the tax is an undue burden and a barrier to Christian generosity, EXPECT TO HEAR GOD SAYING “LET MY PEOPLE GO”.

When people are trapped inside their homes - unable to freely go about sharing the love and the truth of Jesus because of plague of violent crime in a city, EXPECT TO HEAR GOD SAYING “LET MY PEOPLE GO”.

When women in a society are barred by custom, culture, and policy from contributing to the society the leadership placed in them by the Lord, EXPECT TO HEAR GOD SAYING “LET MY PEOPLE GO”.

The energy behind true biblical justice is the revelation that people do not belong to the rich, the powerful, and the influential in this world.

The earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof; the world and those who dwell in it.

The creation exists, not man’s profit, but for God’s pleasure.

Expect God To Work From His Sovereign Position

The casual reader of Exodus will experience a fair bit of moral anxiety and theological confusion.

This moral anxiety stems from pondering what it means that God hardened pharaoh’s heart.

If this is the case, then the poor man had no meaningful choice. He was merely doing what he was programmed to do. How then was he to blame?

But, a closer reading of the text will show us something a bit more nuanced.

In introduction to the plague narrative (Chapter 7 Verse 3) and in the summary of the plague narrative (Chapter 11 verse 10) we read that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart.

But, when we turn to the inner story - the detailed account - the language shifts abruptly back and forth.

For example: three continuous verses from 9:34 to 10:1:

34 But when Pharaoh saw that the rain and the hail and the thunder had ceased, he sinned yet again and hardened his [own] heart, he and his servants. 35 So the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, and he did not let the people of Israel go, just as the LORD had spoken through Moses. 10 Then the LORD said to Moses, “Go in to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants, that I may show these signs of mine among them,

The writer is showing us two dimensions of a single phenomenon:

Pharaoh made a settled choice in how he will deal with the Hebrew people

AND God’s overruling purpose is at play through the outcome of that choice.

Now if this is making your head hurt, then you are on your way to an accurate interpretation of the text.

It takes a humble heart, not simply a powerful intellect to understand the double lesson of God’s sovereignty

On the one hand whenever God is at work to defeat evil, oppression, and injustice, He will not be defeated by any human or satanic opposition. God’s sovereignty ensures God’s success.

On the other hand, when God acts in judgment against sinful, rebellious, and oppressive people (whether in historical cases such as this or in the final judgment of the living and the dead), nobody can legitimately complain of injustice on the grounds of God’s sovereign governance of history.

Pharaoh had already increased the people’s suffering before Moses showed up.

Pharaoh already declared himself to be God in Egypt before Moses showed up

Beloved, the claim of innocence on the grounds that , “God made me do it!” will always be as false on the lips of any sinner as it would have been on the lips of Pharaoh.

Expect God to work from His position of sovereign governance over history without impeding the moral agency of humankind as the story unfolds.

This is and always will be a bit of mystery in holding this tension between the sovereign position of God and moral responsibility of man

The scripture affirms both.

The central issue in the plague narrative is not Israel’s gain or Pharaoh’s guilt, but God’s glory.

That, beloved, is what we should expect from God as He works in our lives, in our ministries, in our families, and careers. God is not working to ensure anyone’s gain or to punish anyone’s guilt…God is working to show forth His own glory.

My next door neighbor blasted music all night long last night (I’m talking about non-stop)

9:00 at night

6:00 in the morning

This is something she does on a regular basis. And sometimes I find myself praying that God would burn her house down.

But, the times I’ve felt most in sync with God’s working in my life have been the times when Teacher Aziza and I have gone over to talk to her.

Sometimes we talk about the music and parties and how incredibly unneighborly that behavior is.

Sometimes we talk about other things.

Sometimes she turns the music down. Sometimes, like last night, she doesn’t

The point is that when it comes down to it:

God is not at work to ensure that gain the peace and quiet I so desire.

And God is not at work to punish my neighbor’s belligerence.

God is at work, by some means, to bring glory to His own name.

Do you want to live in sync with God?

Do you want to flow in the rhythms of grace?

Do you want to ride the waves of divine impetus?

Then, set your heart on the glory of God.

Your long-term gain is collateral impact. Your guilt is swallowed up by His mercy and grace. When your heart is set on His glory.

Therefore I say to you take no thought for your life, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ …But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. (Mt 6:31–33)

I’m ready for God to work in my life for His glory.

Use my life for your glory.