A Savior Came: Moses

Victories: 1. 55 Operation Christmas Child Boxes 2. Thank you to everyone who worked so hard to decorate our sanctuary

Prayer: Exit Church Forrest Brown & Tyler Shirley

Missionary Prayer: Doug & Jenny McGee / China - Pray for the family and their safety.

A Savior with Weaknesses

We started this Advent series last week, but as many of you weren’t here due to the snow, let me recap a bit of what this is all about. In this season of busyness, the reason for it all can get lost. Therefore, what we need is more understanding of who the Savior is. In doing so, we are going to look at 3 types of saviors whose lives and actions pointed us to the one true Savior. We will end just before Christmas with a deep look at why Jesus is the culmination of all that God set up and the reasons why He had to send us the Savior. Last week, we looked at the life of Joseph, and this week, we take some time to look at how Moses foreshadowed the coming of Jesus. To do so, let’s look at some passages that show us the comparisons between these two saviors. Moses the Imperfect Savior and Jesus the Perfect One.

Exodus 1:22 “So Pharaoh commanded all his people, saying, “Every son who is born you shall cast into the river, and every daughter you shall save alive.”” - Matthew 2:16 “Then Herod, when he saw that he was deceived by the wise men, was exceedingly angry; and he sent forth and put to death all the male children who were in Bethlehem and in all its districts, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had determined from the wise men.”

Hebrews 11:24–25 “By faith Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin,” - Matthew 4:8–10 “Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to Him, “All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.’ ””

Acts 7:25 “For he supposed that his brethren would have understood that God would deliver them by his hand, but they did not understand.” - John 1:10–11 “He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him.”

Exodus 2:11 “Now it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown, that he went out to his brethren and looked at their burdens. And he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his brethren.” - Matthew 11:28 “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

Numbers 21:16–18 “From there they went to Beer, which is the well where the Lord said to Moses, “Gather the people together, and I will give them water.” Then Israel sang this song: “Spring up, O well! All of you sing to it— The well the leaders sank, Dug by the nation’s nobles, By the lawgiver, with their staves.” And from the wilderness they went to Mattanah,” - John 4:14 “but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.””

Numbers 27:5 “So Moses brought their case before the Lord.” - 1 John 2:1 “My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”

Exodus 34:29–30 “Now it was so, when Moses came down from Mount Sinai (and the two tablets of the Testimony were in Moses’ hand when he came down from the mountain), that Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone while he talked with Him. So when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him.” - Matthew 17:2 “and He was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became as white as the light.”

Deuteronomy 1:23 ““The plan pleased me well; so I took twelve of your men, one man from each tribe.” - Mark 3:13–14 “And He went up on the mountain and called to Him those He Himself wanted. And they came to Him. Then He appointed twelve, that they might be with Him and that He might send them out to preach,”

Numbers 11:16 “So the Lord said to Moses: “Gather to Me seventy men of the elders of Israel, whom you know to be the elders of the people and officers over them; bring them to the tabernacle of meeting, that they may stand there with you.” - Luke 10:1 “After these things the Lord appointed seventy others also, and sent them two by two before His face into every city and place where He Himself was about to go.”

Lastly, Moses and Jesus shared all of these titles - Prophet, Priest, Leader Shepherd, Judge, Mediator, Intercessor, and Deliverer

As we just looked through all of those scriptures that tie Moses to Jesus, we are also reminded of just how much of the Bible draws us back to this time in Israel’s history and just how important a figure Moses plays in the day-to-day life of the Jewish people. Moses is synonymous with the patriarchs; you cannot mention the most important figures in the Bible as a whole and not mention his name. Whereas Abraham was the start of this lineage of the Jewish people, it is Moses who became the central axis on which the entire nation pivoted. When we think about the life of Moses and the part he played in saving Israel out of Egypt and then in making Israel into a nation, it makes perfect sense that we tie his actions and life to that of Christ Jesus. Moses saved God’s people! However, as outsized as the life of Moses became, I learn more from the passages that point to his weaknesses more than his accomplishments. To get started, let’s look at the first one.

Weaknesses

In a similar way to Joseph, Moses grew up believing that he was special. How could he not? Pharaoh declares that all Israelite boys are to be killed, and yet Moses, an Israelite boy, grew up in Pharaoh’s household as an adopted son to Pharaoh’s own daughter. But despite his privileged Egyptian life somehow Moses does not let the Egyptian side of him trump his Hebrew side. Moses defends a fellow Hebrew one day from the abuse of an Egyptian; by killing the Egyptian. This doesn’t go unnoticed, so he flees into the wilderness, which is where we pick up the historic account.

Bible Reading Exodus 3:1-11

This is the first look that we get at a major weakness of Moses. While he turned and listened to what God was saying from the midst of the burning bush, which is good, his actions after the Lord finishes speaking are where he goes wrong. Moses doubts himself, and I can imagine a bit of the reason for the doubt. Moses, as a young man, was headstrong and felt like he was on top of the world because he was chosen by God. But by the time the burning bush incident happened, that feeling of being 10-foot-tall and bulletproof had faded quite a bit.

The time frames matter here as we continue with Moses. What we see from scripture is that when Moses flees into the wilderness, he is around 40 years old. So, 40 years of feeling special and living as royalty. But in that moment, his feeling of specialness and the entitlement that comes with being royal came crashing down around him. Now we find Moses in the wilderness in front of a burning bush, and while these two accounts are only separated by 10+ verses here in the scripture, the timeframe is actually another 40 years. So 40 years in Pharaoh’s house and then 40 years of believing he had ruined his life working as a shepherd in the wilderness. I suspect that all thoughts of his life being special had left him long ago. At 80 years old, I am sure he was more consumed with quietly living out his last days than he was with leading the people of Israel. I believe that is why we have this question from Moses to God here in our passage. Exodus 3:11 “But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?”” In other words, Moses is saying, “Who me? The old guy? You want me, a geriatric old man, to do what?” I can understand his thought process here. I mean, if God had come to him 40 years earlier and said, “Return to Egypt and lead my people,” the ask may not have been such a big thing. Moses, at that point, most likely still felt like he was the strong, capable leader that everyone could respect and follow, but now, at 80, Moses was a broken old man, so why should he go to Pharaoh?

Obey

And here is the thing. We completely understand where Moses is coming from because we, too, look at tasks at hand and we say, “Me God? You want me?” and then we make excuses similar to Moses. I am: too old, too young, too inexperienced, too busy, too tired, too shy, too tongue-tied, etc. So we need to recognize that these excuses are nothing more than us trying to get out of what God has called us to, and we need to stop.

I want to apply the lesson of Moses to our lives. Moses did the right thing, and he listened to the Lord. This should be applauded, and we should do the same. God has called each of us who believes in the name of the only Son of God to a special task. What is that task? It is to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with the world. Matthew 28:19–20 “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.” The question is, are we listening to the Lord in this, and are we obeying? God gave Moses a monumental task: “Go and lead my people out of slavery in Egypt, away from the most powerful army on the planet at the time, and LEAD them as a ruler and as their spiritual leader back to the land promised to Abraham.” Huge task, right? You can understand why Moses was hesitant, but our task is no less monumental. To bring the entire world to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. Let the weight and enormity of that task fall on you for a moment. Can you feel the insecurities that Moses must have felt? Therefore if Moses was called to obedience we should be likewise.

But Moses wasn’t done feeling uncertain in his abilities: Read Ex 3:13, 4:1, 10, 13.

After each and every one of these excuses from Moses, God gave Moses His God Powered ways to get past Moses’ human weaknesses. When Moses said, “What God am I to say sent me?” God declared to him exactly how he would define the Name of God to all Israel. When Moses declared that he didn’t know how to speak to people, God said that He would speak through Moses. When Moses feared that the people wouldn’t listen, God showed Moses how God would perform miracles through Moses. Each time Moses had a new excuse, God had an answer, and it was on God, not Moses, to accomplish the task. All Moses had to do was be obedient.

As we look at the monumental task that God has for us, we can hear Moses’ excuses being echoed in our own voice. God, what if they don’t believe me when I speak of you? God, I don’t speak so good: what if I mess it up? God, why would anyone listen to me? God, please just choose someone else. I know that I have had moments in my life when those were my exact words. The words I used to deny my God given duty to “Go and make disciples.” Yet, God has not given me a pass on this, and He won’t give you one either. I love this saying, “God does not Call the Qualified; He Qualifies the Called.” In every excuse that Moses gave God, God returned it with how He, God, would get him through it, and yet Moses still wouldn’t believe. That doesn’t mean that God gave Moses a pass. Exodus 4:13–15 “But he said, “O my Lord, please send by the hand of whomever else You may send.” So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses, and He said: “Is not Aaron the Levite your brother? I know that he can speak well. And look, he is also coming out to meet you. When he sees you, he will be glad in his heart. Now you shall speak to him and put the words in his mouth. And I will be with your mouth and with his mouth, and I will teach you what you shall do.” God is not looking for the powerful, or the well spoken, or the charismatic, or the compassionate, or the type A personality, or those with the time on their hands, or the ones with the most experience, or the ones who aren’t as old as we feel. No. God is looking for you, even though you feel like the least likely person to be called by God to do any of this.

Believe

Now, let’s get Moses to the other side of all this weakness and excuses. If you know or have read the story before, you know that God does huge, amazing things through Moses to get the Israelite people free from their slavery at the hands of the Egyptians. If you haven’t read or if you need a refresher, take some time this week and read through Exodus 1-14. It is one of the most exciting pieces of history you can read, and it showcases just how much God is willing to do for His people. But as I said, I want to get us to the other side, so we are going to skip past the 10 plagues that bring Egypt and it’s Pharoah to it’s knees, we are going to skip past the fact that all the Israelites had to do was ask for Egypts gold and money and the people of Egypt just gave it to them. It is here where we pick it all up again, we see Moses leading the people just as God said he would. In Chapter 14 of Exodus; Pharaoh finally figures out what he has lost by letting Israel go and goes after them with his huge army. The people of Israel are between that army and the Red Sea. They can’t cross it on their own. So what does God do? He has Moses raise his hands over the sea, and God opens up a path for Israel to cross through. A miracle only God can accomplish. God also holds back the Egyptian army till the crossing is done. Then, in one stroke of God’s power, God allowed the Egyptian army to pursue Israel across the Red Sea, only for God to allow the waters to come crashing back down on them. In a moment of horrific terrifying violence, God crushed Egypt's hopes of getting its slave labor back.

After all of that, you can almost hear a collective sigh of relief from both Moses and the entire Israelite people. What does this man, whose excuse was that he could not speak well, do after all of this? He writes a song, and here are the opening words. Exodus 15:1b “... “I will sing to the Lord, For He has triumphed gloriously! The horse and its rider He has thrown into the sea!” Moses finally got it. God is the one who triumphs, God is the one who is going to do the work, God is the one who will deal with our enemies. My job is to obey and believe.

Gospel

Jesus died for our sins, and because He did, we can place our belief in that sacrifice. 1 John 1:9 says, “we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” We have the promise of God that if we ask for forgiveness and believe in the saving power of Jesus, we will be saved. And from the saving power of Jesus, we become new creations. 2 Cor. 5:17 states, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” This means that as Christians, we get a fresh start, we aren’t who we used to be, and we have the power of God behind us to change who we are becoming. Glory to God in the highest, for He has saved my soul, and He can save yours too if you will let Him. If you aren’t sure, then you can confess Him as your savior. If that is your desire today, you can say this prayer with me. Bow your heads.

Dear Lord, I know that I’m a sinner. I’m sorry for my sin, and I ask you to forgive me. I believe you died for my sins and rose from the dead. I repent of my sins, and I ask you to come into my life and take control. I make a commitment to follow you, and I trust you as my Lord and Savior.

Friend, if you prayed that prayer today, I ask that you come and speak to me after the service.

Benediction: Kings Treasure