Trusting God in Hard Times

Please join me in prayer.

Father God you are a good God, you are Holy, You are Faithful and your love is unending. Lord please open our eyes and our ears and our hearts towards you. Help us to hear your word today and allow it to form our hearts and minds to desire and to do your will. Allow this message to glorify you.

In Jesus name, Amen.

How many of you have seen someone that seemed to be blessed in every area of life? Their finances were thriving, their family was flourishing, it seemed that they did not have a problem in t he world. So you thought, wow God is with them.

Many times we think that blessings and good things happening to us means that God is with us. We also sometimes think that when bad things happen it means God has left us. I am here to say that that is not true.

Id like to share a story with you.

Several months ago, my family and I moved into an older home here in Haughville.

Before that move, we were comfortable. We lived in a home in Little Flower for about ten years. It had five bedrooms, two bathrooms, a waterproofed basement, and it was a place we had grown to love. It was familiar. It was stable. It was comfortable.

Then God began calling us somewhere else.

God was leading our family to live in the community where we minister. So we put our house up for sale and began looking for a new home.

We found one house that could work. It was smaller than what we were leaving, but after inspections, contractor consultations, and careful planning, we believed we could make it fit our family's needs.

Everything seemed to be in place.

The plan was simple. Before moving in, contractors would have a few days to make some modifications. A dining room would become a bedroom. A wall would be removed. The kitchen would be relocated. The old kitchen would become a room for our boys. The flooring would be ripped up and redone. We had a schedule, a budget, and a timeline.

But things did not go according to plan.

Three days turned into weeks. Weeks turned into months.

What we thought would be a short inconvenience became a long season of disruption. We lived without a kitchen far longer than expected. Walls were torn down. New walls were built. Dust was everywhere. Contractors were constantly coming and going. Rooms were unusable. At times it felt like the house was getting worse instead of better.

There were moments when I walked through the house and thought, "What have we done?"

We followed what we believed God was calling us to do, but after taking that step of faith, life became harder, not easier.

Yet little by little, things began to come together.

One room was finished. Then another. Eventually our boys had their room. My wife and I had a room. The girls were settled. The living room became functional. The den became usable. As time passed, we could finally see what had been hidden from us in the middle of the construction.

The mess wasn't evidence that there was no plan.

The mess was evidence that the plan was still being worked.

The demolition was necessary for the rebuilding.

The disruption was part of the process.

What looked like chaos to us was actually progress toward a finished purpose.

Many of us experience seasons like this in life.

A loved one dies. A job is lost. A diagnosis comes. Financial pressure increases. Relationships become strained. A government decision affects your livelihood. A road closes, a bridge shuts down, and suddenly your daily life becomes more difficult. We take a step of obedience, and instead of things getting easier, they seem to get harder.

We need to know that when things get harder, God is working His plan, and He has not forsaken us.

So the question for today is: How do we trust God when life gets hard and we do not understand His plan?

There are three main points that we will look at today.

God calls us to a purpose.

God is with us even when life is hard.

When things get hard, trust that God is working His plan.

Last week with Pastor Ben we saw God appear to Moses in the burning bush and God calls Him to deliver His people. An 80 year old man living with his Father n law and family. We saw that God pursues us, even when we are not looking for Him just as he pursued Moses. We saw the Holiness of God and we were reminded that we should not become familiar with Him forgetting that He is Holy. We saw that God promised Moses that He would be with Him. Now we go to Exodus 5:1.

Todays text is coming from Exodus 5:1-6:12

In Exodus 5:1 Moses and Aaron come to Pharoah and give him the message that God has given them to deliver, the message was Exodus 5:1 “ ‘Let my people go, so that they may hold a festival to me in the wilderness.’ ”

Many times this is quoted but we miss the second portion. When we watch the “Moses" movies and stories, we see “let my people go" but we dont see, “That they may hold a festival to me in the wilderness.” He released them to serve Him.

God did not call his people to freedom for freedoms sake. Freedom, for freedom’s sake is not really freedom. Its bondage to our own desires.

I have a couple of uncles who have spent much of their lives in and out of prison.

One of my uncles went back to prison for a second time when I was entering high school. He served his sentence, and about fifteen years later he was finally released.

Now, when he walked out of prison, he was free from the bars, free from the guards, and free from the cell. But he wasn't free for anything. He had no clear purpose, no direction, no plan for what came next. His understanding of freedom was simply the absence of restraint—the ability to do whatever he wanted.

The problem is that freedom without purpose isn't really freedom at all. If all you're free to do is follow the same desires, habits, and patterns that got you into trouble in the first place, you're still a slave—just without prison walls.

It wasn't long before my uncle found himself doing the same things that had landed him in prison before. And eventually, he was arrested again for the same type of crime.

His problem wasn't that he had been set free. His problem was that he had been set free from something, but not set free for something.

That's an important distinction because throughout Scripture, God never delivers His people simply so they can do whatever they want. God delivers His people so they can belong to Him, worship Him, and live for His purposes.

In Exodus, God doesn't tell Pharaoh, "Let My people go so they can be independent." He says, "Let My people go, that they may serve Me."

God's goal was never freedom for freedom's sake. God's goal was freedom for worship, freedom for obedience, and freedom for a relationship with Himself.

God called His people to freedom from Pharaoh so that they can Serve Him.

Just as God called the Israelites to freedom from Pharaoh to serve Him, God calls us and frees us from the bondage of sin so that we can serve Him, and glorify Him.

When we know that God has called us to a purpose then we know that God is with us and He has a plan for us. This is what helps us to hang on through difficulties. When things get hard, trust that God is working His plan.

In verse 2 we see Pharaoh’s response to Gods message. God is telling Pharaoh to let His people go that they may worship Him. In verse 2 pharaoh says, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey him and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord and I will not let Israel go.”

Here we see that Pharaoh in his own eyes is the ultimate authority. He does not recognize Gods Authority and he does not know Who God is.

Not only does Pharaoh show irreverence towards God. But in the next few verses he actually responds in a strategic and retaliatory way.

Pharaoh accuses Moses and Aaron of trying to take the Israelites from working for him. Then in response Pharaoh orders his overseers to take the straw from the Israelites and make them find their own straw to make bricks.

Pharaoh makes their lives harder because of the call from God through Moses. Then after making their lives harder he calls them lazy and he hopes that this hard labor distracts the Israelites from pursuing the desire to be free and serve God.

Have you ever been surrounded by chaos or been subjected to hardships that are so heavy that you forget about Gods plan for your life?

Have you been in a place that you didn't believe that Gods plan was for you or could be true because you were suffering so much?

About thirteen years ago, I went through one of the darkest seasons of my life.

I was exhausted, discouraged, and depressed. It felt like everything around me was falling apart. I would sit alone in dark rooms carrying the weight of failure, pressure, and despair.

At the time, I was working as a real estate broker. Historically, I had been successful, but suddenly I hit a season where nothing seemed to work. Every day I got up and worked hard, but for three straight months I didn't close a single deal.

And in real estate, no sales means no income.

As the weeks passed, foreclosure notices began showing up. Utility shut-off notices arrived. Collection agencies started calling. Financially, things were unraveling.

At the same time, I began pulling away from the people who could have helped me. I became distant from my church family. I was ashamed of my situation, and I even withheld information from my wife because I was afraid to tell her how bad things had become.

Looking back, what strikes me most is that although I was a Christian, my hardship became so loud that I stopped focusing on God. I knew His promises. I knew He was faithful. I knew He had a plan. But all I could see was the burden in front of me.

That's exactly what Pharaoh was trying to do in Exodus 5. He increased Israel's workload so they would stop thinking about God's promises and focus only on surviving another day.

Hardship often does the same thing to us.

Whether it's financial pressure, health problems, family struggles, violence in our communities, or systems that seem to keep people trapped in cycles of difficulty, the burden can become so heavy that we lose sight of God.

I remember reaching my lowest point. One day I stood in the shower crying in despair. But in that moment, the Holy Spirit stirred my heart to worship and cry out to God.

And God met me there.

He didn't immediately remove all of my problems, but He reminded me that I belonged to Him, that He had not abandoned me, and that He was still working His plan.

The greatest danger of hardship is not always the hardship itself. Sometimes the greatest danger is that the hardship distracts us from God.

Pharaoh wanted Israel to be so burdened that they forgot God's promises. Hardships often have the same effect on us.

But when life gets hard, God's people must remember: our burdens may increase, but God's promises remain the same.

When things get hard, trust that God is working His plan.

After Pharaoh made the people work even harder Moses was discouraged. He asked God why this trouble has come to him even while he was being obediant to God.

He wondered if this is why God had sent him to Egypt?

He asked God why He hasn't rescued His people.

Have you ever been in the place where you were doing right and being obedient, but there were still troubles in your life?

Listen to how God responds.

In Chapter 6:1-8, God responded by letting Moses know that Pharoah will let His people go because of Gods Mighty hand.

Then God reminded Moses of who He is. Faithful, Sovereign and Almighty. He hears the cry of His people and He will deliver them.

Remember Pharaoh thought he was the ultimate authority.

But, God reminds Moses who the true King is and who truly has authority over all things. He reminds Him that He is God and God is with Moses and His people.

This is true of God today. When you are living this life and hard things happen. Remember that God is with you still.

Going through hardships does not mean God has left you. He is still there.

When things get hard, trust that God is working His plan.

In Gods response to Moses he says that He will deliver the Israelites from the Egyptians. But He also says that they will be His people and He will be their God. God was redeeming His people to Himself.

Today God still redeems His people to himself. This again reminds us, that God called us and liberated us from the bondage of sin to serve Him, not to do whatever we want.

But how are we being redeemed and liberated from the bondage of sin today?

Through Christ, God has accomplished an even greater redemption than the one we see in Exodus.

Just as God sent Moses to proclaim His Word and lead His people out of bondage in Egypt, God sent His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to save His people from the bondage of sin and death. Jesus lived the life we could not live, died the death we deserved, and rose again in victory so that all who trust in Him might have eternal life.

Even today, God is still redeeming His people. By the power of the Holy Spirit, He opens blind eyes, softens hard hearts, and draws sinners to Himself. He breaks the chains of sin and brings us into the freedom for which we were created—not freedom to live for ourselves, but freedom to know God, worship Him, and joyfully serve Christ as our King.

Perhaps today you are hearing that call. Perhaps for the first time you are sensing your need for Christ and recognizing that God is drawing you to Himself through His Word.

If that is you, do not harden your heart. Turn to Christ. Trust in Him alone for your salvation. Bring your sin, your burdens, your failures, and your brokenness to Him. He is a gracious Savior who receives all who come to Him in faith.

And for those who already belong to Christ, take heart. The God who redeemed Israel, the God who sent His Son, and the God who called you by His Spirit is still at work. He has not abandoned His people, and He will faithfully complete the work He has begun.

God is still redeeming His people today.

In Chapter 6 verse 9 Moses then went back to the Israelites with the good news that God had shared. But they did not listen because of their discouragement and hard labor.

There is a reality, that we can be blinded by discouragement and hardships, forgetting that God is with us.

Many times, as we go out and share the good news of the gospel to others we often do not see immediate responses or sometimes no response at all. We pray for them, we share our lives with them, we offer the truth of the gospel to them, and it seems at times that they just don't want to listen.

Here is the reality that we see not only in our lives and society, but we see it in this text. When people have been oppressed, beaten down, and good things dont seem to come their way often then they can be so discouraged that this news seems too good to be true. When you are sharing the gospel and pouring into others and this happens do not be discouraged, remember that God is with you, and that He sent you.

When things get hard, trust that God is working His plan.

Remember Gods response to Moses, remember that God is faithful, He is all powerful and His plan will be achieved.

God calls us to a purpose.

God is with us even when life is hard.

When things get hard, Trust that God is working His plan.

I challenge and encourage each and everyone of us that we remember , even when the difficulties of life are flying at us and everything seems hard. We need to remember that God is with us, He is faithful, and we can trust His plan, even if we do not understand it.

Please Join me in prayer:

Father God,

Thank you for your word. You are Holy, you are Good, You are the sovereign king of Kings and Lord of Lords and you are with your people. You are with us. You promised that you would never leave us or forsake us. We know that you are with us even through the hard times. We know that we can trust you, we can depend on you, and that you alone are God. When things are hard, we know that you are working your plan.

Father please be with us throughout the week, remind us at times when we are weary that you are with us and you are working your plan. Lord We love you, we praise you, and we Glorify you.

In Jesus name,

Amen