Exodus Prep

Exodus  •  Sermon  •  Submitted
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Sin makes impossible demands and obeying God yields results we don't expect.

Notes
Transcript
Handout

Color Legend

[for me] [for media operator] Scripture to fix / change

Intro

Who here is a fan of British baking shows?
Katie makes fun of me because I have started to watch what seems like a spinoff of British baking show called “The Repair Shop”
Instead of making cakes, people are bringing this team of repair men and women very old furniture, instruments, pottery, even a hay bailer
The problem they face in almost every repair is that there are no parts available for stuff made 100 years ago
So they have to often fashion together some critical piece however they can
And through the magic of TV, the search for these parts takes just a moment but I can’t imagine the timeline that realistically unfolds
If you take out a part or ingredient, it’s pretty difficult to build something right
Let me start by saying “congratulations” [pause]
Yes I don’t know if you knew we were expanding in that direction: surprise!
Each of you have been enlisted to work for a brand new roofing company
Exciting surprise to start your day
Everyone in here today is an employee of our newly formed company
One minor note is that you actually don’t have a choice and neither do I as to whether you accept this new position
We have enough people to have quite a few crews each with a crew leader
With all the hurricanes that pass through here we’ll always have work
Now let’s think about what it’s going to be like to work in this business for a minute
Think about what it’s going to feel like: hot (there’s no way around this because it’s Florida and you’re on a roof with long pants and a long sleeved shirt in the middle of the day)
Hear the sounds: constant hammering, maybe the buzz of the occasional saw, the motor of a refilling air compressor, the repetitive “pft” of the nailguns
Think about what it’s going to feel like: hot (there’s no way around this because you it’s Florida and you’re on a roof with long pants and a shirt
Now one day we’re all in the middle of our projects and all of our crew leaders get a text update [FIRE SOUND EFFECT] (pull out phone)
Let me read to what it says
“Effective immediately, we will no longer be supplying any nails. And we are instituting a new rule barring supply of nails from any known hardware store or supplier. Instead, all workers are expected to gather nails from current and previous sites where available.”
Um what?
Someone must be playing a prank on us [FIRE SOUND EFFECT AGAIN]
Oh but here’s another message that will probably make sense of this
Oh but here’s another message that will probably make sense of this
“This is not a joke. Please share with all employees. Note: all project deadlines remain in affect in spite of this change. All missed deadlines will result in strong punishment.”
​
Imagine together we are all roofers
A lot of us have seen these guys work right? Hurricanes?
Come on use that imagination, stretch it out today, I know it’s hard
Anything out of wood
Box, shed, chair, table, get creative if you want
You gather all your tools, get your toolbelt strapped on
We all work for a roofing company
And we’re up on a hot, Florida roof in the middle of the day
You hav
As roofers, we work for a roofing company so we don’t provide the supplies, we just show up, pick up our tools - hammer, nailgun, etc - and we get to work
Now picture we’re in the middle of this project - nailguns, hammers, saws buzzing, maybe a nice radio keeping us busy - and then the jobsite manager says he has a special announcement to make
He says that the company will no longer be providing the nails
Like no nails - maybe smallest but most critical supply needed to attach wood to a frame and shingles to wood
And before some of us can get smart, he adds that we won’t be allowed to buy nails from any hardware store because the company actually just bought those and our only option is to gather spare nails from previous jobs or anywhere we can find them
Oh and one more thing: we have to stay on pace with our quota of roofs
What do we do?
How do you feel? Is your heartrate up? Do you feel the stress of this?
What if your life was at stake? Your families life?
As we continue the story of Exodus today, we’re going to see that God’s people facing a very similar situation
Impossible task
Have you ever felt that what’s being demanded of you is impossible?
Mountains we face
We’ll also see that God’s people had unmet expectations in the midst of their suffering
Have you ever felt like your expectations of God weren’t met?
We’ll see that they find themselves suffering in a real, harsh, painful, and probably deadly ways
They
Missing ingredient
Here’s the big question for you today: what do you expect of God? what do you expect of others? what do you expect of your circumstances?
I want us to be on the look out for expectations in this text and think about parallels to our own expectations
Here’s the big idea today: while we often expect things to get easier because we obey and follow God, more often than not, they get harder and sometimes impossibly harder
While that may feel like a hopeless reality to embrace, I am praying that we all can see God’s goodness and His kindness and His grace right in the middle of all of that
Baking show
While that may feel like a hopeless reality to embrace, I am praying that we all can see God’s goodness and His kindness and His grace right in the middle of all of that
​

Context

So what’s happened so far in this story?
God teams up Moses and Aaron out in the desert and they now come back to Egypt before the elders, the leaders of the enslaved Israelite people
They shared what God told them in the desert and aided by some miraculous signs, the elders believe them, they believe that God has heard their cries and they believe He is going to save them from Egyptian oppression
And we actually leave them in Chapter 4 worshipping God
What’s happened so far
What happens right before

Text

Moses wrote this probably when the people are in the desert (we’ll see this in weeks ahead)
​
What will come next
Let’s be reminded of the audience that Moses intended
He most likely wrote this to remind

We may reasonably conjecture that the first audience for whom he wrote was the second postexodus generation, the one that had grown up in the wilderness during the days described in the book of Numbers. He would have written the book for them as that generation was preparing to enter the promised land as a reminder of who they were and what their origins (i.e., the events and instructions their parents had experienced) had been and what was required of them in the covenant God had made with their parents.

Making bricks
The New American Commentary: Exodus 7. First Audience with Pharaoh: Harsh Results (5:1–14)

Stubble is the very short remaining stalks of plants after harvesting: the bit between the root and where the reaping scythe or sickle cut the plant. It was only a relatively poor substitute for straw, making the process of producing suitable bricks much harder, but it also was much harder to gather from harvested fields even when the season is right (requiring careful, tedious hand pulling and cutting) as compared to the purposely preserved (and usually bundled) straw and was almost hopelessly difficult to gather in the off season

​
Pharaoh had made the task virtually impossible

Text

Making Bricks Without Straw
1 Afterward Moses and Aaron went and said to Pharaoh, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness.’ ”
Note: Moses and Aaron are granted an audience with Pharaoh not because he’s the Prince of Egypt (sorry Disney)
Most likely this is because of the common policy of kings and rulers to accept anyone in an attempt to show they were a ruler of all people types and classes
​
​
“Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness.’ ”
Moses and Aaron are themselves slaves, they are property in the eyes of Egyptian law
How is it they they are suddenly in a place to deliver this pretty brazen message to what might be the most powerful leader in the world at this time?
It’s NOT because Moses was the Prince of Egypt (sorry Disney) and Pharaoh is happy to see him
Most likely this is just part of common courtesy of kings and pharaohs at this time to be seen as leaders of the “people”
Anyone can come before the king or pharaoh
Moreover, God is orchestrating this
​
2 But Pharaoh said, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, and moreover, I will not let Israel go.”
A couple things just to clarify here at the beginning
Moses and Aaron are themselves slaves, they are property in the eyes of Egyptian law
How is it they they are suddenly in a place to deliver this pretty brazen message to what might be the most powerful leader in the world at this time?
It’s NOT because Moses was the Prince of Egypt (sorry Disney) and Pharaoh is happy to see him
Most likely this is just part of common courtesy of kings and pharaohs at this time to be seen as leaders of the “people”

it is not simply the knower’s cognitive recognition or acknowledgment but also the inclination or posture of the knower in relation to what is known.

The sense of the word “know” here is similar to its use in the declaration that the Lord “knew” Israel’s suffering (see 2:25): it is not simply the knower’s cognitive recognition or acknowledgment but also the inclination or posture of the knower in relation to what is known.

Anyone can come before the king or pharaoh
Moreover, God is orchestrating this
​

The sense of the word “know” here is similar to its use in the declaration that the Lord “knew” Israel’s suffering (see 2:25): it is not simply the knower’s cognitive recognition or acknowledgment but also the inclination or posture of the knower in relation to what is known.

​
In other words, Pharaoh wasn’t just naively unfamiliar with God, he didn’t CARE about knowing God
We now have our primary conflict: it’s not between Pharaoh and Moses here but between Pharaoh and God himself
Keep this in mind as we keep reading
In other words, Pharaoh wasn’t just naively unfamiliar with God, he didn’t CARE about knowing God
Right out of the gate we see something important: Pharaoh misjudged what was going on here
​
We often incorrectly label the commands that God gives to us as “impossible” rather than seeing these moments for what they are: crossroads for obedience

Impossible Demands

A Ruthless Enemy

Pharaoh thought it was crazy to think of letting go of the control of these people
These were HIS people not His people
But like for Pharaoh, with us these are moments of decision for us

The sense of the word “know” here is similar to its use in the declaration that the Lord “knew” Israel’s suffering (see 2:25): it is not simply the knower’s cognitive recognition or acknowledgment but also the inclination or posture of the knower in relation to what is known.

In other words, Pharaoh wasn’t just naively unfamiliar with God, he didn’t CARE about knowing God
Who is God? Why should You obey him?
This is a crossroads that as we will see in the weeks ahead have greater consequence than we expect
The language is the same between the increasing of the oppression and the increase of the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart
Pharaoh thought he was sealing the fate of the Israelite’s but he was sealing His own
Control (or loss of control) exposes belief
Pharoah positions himself in what is literally the most dangerous place you can be: in opposition to the God of the universe
Thus says God, thus says Pharaoh
Pharaoh is an earthly picture of our truest enemy, Satan
Satan, one of God’s beautifully created angels is cast out of heaven because he desires the praise only God deserves
He believes he is worthy of glory only due God himself
Pharaoh wasn’t seen as just a man; he was a god in Egyptian belief since the prosperity and the might and the reputation of the Egyptian civilization rested on him
3 Then they said, “The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Please let us go a three days’ journey into the wilderness that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God, lest he fall upon us with pestilence or with the sword.”
Typical to allow workers to take time off to observe religious holidays
“Lest he fall upon us” isn’t a reference to Israel but to both Israel and Egypt
As occupants of Egypt, Moses and Aaron realized that any punishment that fell on Pharaoh would at least have some affect on them
4 But the king of Egypt said to them, “Moses and Aaron, why do you take the people away from their work? Get back to your burdens.”
Interesting that Moses, who wrote this all down after the fact, chose to switch from calling him Pharaoh to the King of Egpyt
This runs in contrast to the God of the Hebrews in the verse before
Moses is showing us that we have a king, an earthly established position, opposing God
This Pharaoh viewed the Israelites as a commodity and therefore valuable
Previous Pharaoh was threatened by them and wanted to exterminate them
5 And Pharaoh said, “Behold, the people of the land are now many, and you make them rest from their burdens!” 6 The same day Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters of the people and their foremen, 7 “You shall no longer give the people straw to make bricks, as in the past; let them go and gather straw for themselves. 8 But the number of bricks that they made in the past you shall impose on them, you shall by no means reduce it, for they are idle.
Different translations says “slackers” or “lazy”
He is insulting them here
Therefore they cry, ‘Let us go and offer sacrifice to our God.’ 9 Let heavier work be laid on the men that they may labor at it and pay no regard to lying words.”
Pharaoh thinks they are using God as an excuse for laziness
Pharaoh’s heart is already hard
We’ll get into this idea in a few weeks
But this is evidence of where he already was
Immediately he made their task more difficult
Pharaoh’s strategy: create leadership distrust and disrupt Moses leadership
Gives them a literally impossible task
Has the foremen beaten (why wouldn’t the actual slaves be beaten)
This causes a breakdown in the leadership structure as they attack Moses
10 So the taskmasters and the foremen of the people went out and said to the people, “Thus says Pharaoh, ‘I will not give you straw.
Let’s not miss this strong parallel in the language here
In verse 1, Moses speaks on God’s behalf “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel...”
Here in verse 10, the foremen start the same way “Thus says Pharaoh”
Pharaoh has positioned himself in direct opposition to God himself
​
11 Go and get your straw yourselves wherever you can find it, but your work will not be reduced in the least.’ ” 12 So the people were scattered throughout all the land of Egypt to gather stubble for straw. 13 The taskmasters were urgent, saying, “Complete your work, your daily task each day, as when there was straw.”

A Ruthless Enemy Makes Impossible Demands

A Deluded Enemy

So here’s the second thing I want us to see
​
A Ruthless Enemy makes Impossible Demands

God’s Impossible Commands [strikethrough] / A Crossroads for Obedience

Let’s talk about making bricks

Making Bricks

​
To understand the severity of this we need to educate ourselves on the skill of brick making
This is a mudbrick [show photo]
River clay + water to make thick mud
​
Add straw (1/2 lb per cubic foot of mud mix)
He thought it was crazy to think of letting go of the control of these people
Kneed with bare feet for 4 days
These were HIS people not His people
But like for Pharaoh, with us these are moments of decision for us

The sense of the word “know” here is similar to its use in the declaration that the Lord “knew” Israel’s suffering (see 2:25): it is not simply the knower’s cognitive recognition or acknowledgment but also the inclination or posture of the knower in relation to what is known.

In other words, Pharaoh wasn’t just naively unfamiliar with God, he didn’t CARE about knowing God
Who is God? Why should You obey him?
This is a crossroads that as we will see in the weeks ahead have greater consequence than we expect

Opposing God is Foolish

Pour into molds and let dry on straw / sand floor
Wait a week for drying
Straw
Like modern rebar in concrete
Remove the straw (tebhen)
Takes longer to dry (PRIMARY REASON THEY USED IT BACK THEN)
Fragile and easily broken
Cracks
Will lead quickly to MORE work
Stubble (qashsh meaning dried up)
Normal straw was already processed and prepared for use in making bricks or feeding to animals
Stubble was the part of the stalk left in the ground
Seen as useless
Had to be pulled by hand and then separated / broken up
The New American Commentary: Exodus 7. First Audience with Pharaoh: Harsh Results (5:1–14)

Stubble is the very short remaining stalks of plants after harvesting: the bit between the root and where the reaping scythe or sickle cut the plant. It was only a relatively poor substitute for straw, making the process of producing suitable bricks much harder, but it also was much harder to gather from harvested fields even when the season is right (requiring careful, tedious hand pulling and cutting) as compared to the purposely preserved (and usually bundled) straw and was almost hopelessly difficult to gather in the off season

POSSIBLY INTEGRATE THIS
Remember our roofing company
Building the temple of Amun (god of sun & air)
Pharaoh had made the task virtually impossible

Sin will eventually demand the impossible from you.

A picture of our human bondage and of the bondage of sin
Sin makes demands of us that sooner or later will be impossible for us to meet
We’ll see later in Exodus that when you take away the human oppression, the people’s hearts still run back to dead idols
They actually attempt to embrace the symbols that the people who oppressed them justified their actions for in the first place
Backwards nature of sin
You may feel like you’re in control of your sin - whatever it is - but eventually it WILL OVERTAKE YOU
Every time - I can literally look back at each and every attempt I’ve made to be the master of my sin, keeping it contained and controlled in a nice little compartment and every time at some point probably sooner than I realize it
Maybe you think you’re dabbling in a nice little suburban kiddie pool of secret sin but what you don’t realize is that you’re actually in a life raft full of holes in a vast ocean and the sharks are circling
More will be demanded of you than you can bear
Personal Application
I have been down this road more than I want to admit
The language is the same between the increasing of the oppression and the increase of the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart
It usually starts small, this is the enemies plan
Think of a security feed in a heist movie
When they hijack the feed they make it look the same
The person watching the feed doesn’t react to the blip
Think of how this works with your kids
They change every day right in front of you
But you are with them all the time that the change is often so subtle
And then you look at photos and go wow a lot has changed!
Or a relative sees them who isn’t normally around and talks about how much they’ve changed
We are conditioned to ignore minor change and the enemy knows this
And we tolerate more of the demand of sin because they seem to start so small
But they grow more demanding
Just a little longer today
Just a little more stuff
And more demanding
Pharaoh thought he was sealing the fate of the Israelite’s but he was sealing His own
Now the same gratification / high requires more
And before you know it you’re enslaved
You work your schedule around it
You avoid people because of it
You think about it all the time
And it doesn’t just end there
It keeps demanding and demanding and demanding until eventually it’s asking for everything you have but it’s impossible to keep up
You think your sin is giving you what you want it to give you but you are really giving it what it wants
Like Pharaoh’s whole MO was to CONTROL and to EXPLOIT, this is what sin wants from you at WHATEVER COST
The good news is that it’s not too late
Mercy and grace are waiting if you’ll surrender the mess you’ve constructed to God
As the story of Exodus will continue to show us, even when we expect that there is no way God could redeem or save that’s WHO HE IS
IT’S WHAT HE DOES

Exodus is about rescue from human bondage and rescue from sin’s bondage.

​

Control (or loss of control) exposes belief

An Unexpected Result

Pharoah positions himself in what is literally the most dangerous place you can be: in opposition to the God of the universe
Thus says God, thus says Pharaoh
Pharaoh is an earthly picture of our truest enemy, Satan
Satan, one of God’s beautifully created angels is cast out of heaven because he desires the praise only God deserves
He believes he is worthy of glory only due God himself
Pharaoh wasn’t seen as just a man; he was a god in Egyptian belief since the prosperity and the might and the reputation of the Egyptian civilization rested on him
3 Then they said, “The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Please let us go a three days’ journey into the wilderness that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God, lest he fall upon us with pestilence or with the sword.”
Typical to allow workers to take time off to observe religious holidays
“Lest he fall upon us” isn’t a reference to Israel but to both Israel and Egypt
As occupants of Egypt, Moses and Aaron realized that any punishment that fell on Pharaoh would at least have some affect on them
4 But the king of Egypt said to them, “Moses and Aaron, why do you take the people away from their work? Get back to your burdens.”
This Pharaoh viewed the Israelites as a commodity and therefore valuable
Previous Pharaoh was threatened by them and wanted to exterminate them
12 So the people were scattered throughout all the land of Egypt to gather stubble for straw. 13 The taskmasters were urgent, saying, “Complete your work, your daily task each day, as when there was straw.”
Used most likely for building temples
Pharaoh’s heart is already hard
We’ll get into this idea in a few weeks
But this is evidence of where he already was
Immediately he made their task more difficult
Pharaoh’s strategy: create leadership distrust and disrupt Moses leadership
Gives them a literally impossible task
Has the foremen beaten (why wouldn’t the actual slaves be beaten)
This causes a breakdown in the leadership structure as they attack Moses
​

Bricks Without Straw

Let’s talk about making bricks
This is a mudbrick [show photo]
River clay + water to make thick mud
Add straw (1/2 lb per cubic foot of mud mix)
Kneed with bare feet for 4 days
Pour into molds and let dry on straw / sand floor
Wait a week for drying
Straw
Like modern rebar in concrete
Remove the straw (tebhen)
Takes longer to dry (PRIMARY REASON THEY USED IT BACK THEN)
Fragile and easily broken
Cracks
Will lead quickly to MORE work
Stubble (qashsh meaning dried up)
Normal straw was already processed and prepared for use in making bricks or feeding to animals
Stubble was the part of the stalk left in the ground
Seen as useless
Had to be pulled by hand and then separated / broken up
The New American Commentary: Exodus 7. First Audience with Pharaoh: Harsh Results (5:1–14)

Stubble is the very short remaining stalks of plants after harvesting: the bit between the root and where the reaping scythe or sickle cut the plant. It was only a relatively poor substitute for straw, making the process of producing suitable bricks much harder, but it also was much harder to gather from harvested fields even when the season is right (requiring careful, tedious hand pulling and cutting) as compared to the purposely preserved (and usually bundled) straw and was almost hopelessly difficult to gather in the off season

Pictures
Building the temple of Amun (god of sun & air)
Pharaoh had made the task virtually impossible
10 So the taskmasters and the foremen of the people went out and said to the people, “Thus says Pharaoh, ‘I will not give you straw.
Let’s not miss this strong parallel in the language here
Just take one more dollar
​
​

The Impossible Demands

In verse 1, Moses speaks on God’s behalf “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel...”
Here in verse 10, the foremen start the same way “Thus says Pharaoh”
Pharaoh has positioned himself in direct opposition to God himself
​
11 Go and get your straw yourselves wherever you can find it, but your work will not be reduced in the least.’ ” 12 So the people were scattered throughout all the land of Egypt to gather stubble for straw. 13 The taskmasters were urgent, saying, “Complete your work, your daily task each day, as when there was straw.”

God Wants to Free You

Let’s talk about making bricks
This is a mudbrick [show photo]
River clay + water to make thick mud
Add straw (1/2 lb per cubic foot of mud mix)
Kneed with bare feet for 4 days
Pour into molds and let dry on straw / sand floor
Wait a week for drying
Straw
Like modern rebar in concrete
Remove the straw (tebhen)
Takes longer to dry (PRIMARY REASON THEY USED IT BACK THEN)
Fragile and easily broken
Cracks
Will lead quickly to MORE work
Stubble (qashsh meaning dried up)
Normal straw was already processed and prepared for use in making bricks or feeding to animals
Stubble was the part of the stalk left in the ground
Seen as useless
Had to be pulled by hand and then separated / broken up
The New American Commentary: Exodus 7. First Audience with Pharaoh: Harsh Results (5:1–14)

Stubble is the very short remaining stalks of plants after harvesting: the bit between the root and where the reaping scythe or sickle cut the plant. It was only a relatively poor substitute for straw, making the process of producing suitable bricks much harder, but it also was much harder to gather from harvested fields even when the season is right (requiring careful, tedious hand pulling and cutting) as compared to the purposely preserved (and usually bundled) straw and was almost hopelessly difficult to gather in the off season

Pictures
Building the temple of Amun (god of sun & air)
Pharaoh had made the task virtually impossible

All other masters will eventually demand the impossible from you.

A picture of our human bondage and of the bondage of sin
Sin makes demands of us that sooner or later will be impossible for us to meet
We’ll see later in Exodus that when you take away the human oppression, the people’s hearts still run back to dead idols
They actually attempt to embrace the symbols that the people who oppressed them justified their actions for in the first place
Backwards nature of sin
You may feel like you’re in control of your sin - whatever it is - but eventually it WILL OVERTAKE YOU
Every time - I can literally look back at each and every attempt I’ve made to be the master of my sin, keeping it contained and controlled in a nice little compartment and every time at some point probably sooner than I realize it
Maybe you think you’re dabbling in a nice little suburban kiddie pool of secret sin but what you don’t realize is that you’re actually in a life raft full of holes in a vast ocean and the sharks are circling
More will be demanded of you than you can bear
Personal Application
I have been down this road more than I want to admit
It usually starts small, this is the enemies plan
Think of a security feed in a heist movie
When they hijack the feed they make it look the same
The person watching the feed doesn’t react to the blip
Think of how this works with your kids
They change every day right in front of you
But you are with them all the time that the change is often so subtle
And then you look at photos and go wow a lot has changed!
Or a relative sees them who isn’t normally around and talks about how much they’ve changed
We are conditioned to ignore minor change and the enemy knows this
And we tolerate more of the demand of sin because they seem to start so small
But they grow more demanding
Just a little longer today
Just a little more stuff
And more demanding
Now the same gratification / high requires more
And before you know it you’re enslaved
You work your schedule around it
You avoid people because of it
You think about it all the time
And it doesn’t just end there
It keeps demanding and demanding and demanding until eventually it’s asking for everything you have but it’s impossible to keep up
You think your sin is giving you what you want it to give you but you are really giving it what it wants
Like Pharaoh’s whole MO was to CONTROL and to EXPLOIT, this is what sin wants from you at WHATEVER COST

Opposing God is Foolish

The good news is that it’s not too late
Mercy and grace are waiting if you’ll surrender the mess you’ve constructed to God
POSSIBLY INTEGRATE THIS
As the story of Exodus will continue to show us, even when we expect that there is no way God could redeem or save that’s WHO HE IS
highlight how the language is the same between the increasing of the oppression and the increase of the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart
IT’S WHAT HE DOES
Pharaoh thought he was sealing the fate of the Israelite’s but he was sealing His own

Exodus is about rescue from human bondage and rescue from sin’s bondage.

Control (or loss of control) exposes belief

The Unexpected Results of Following God

Suffering Exposes Expectations

Pharoah positions himself in what is literally the most dangerous place you can be: in opposition to the God of the universe
Thus says God, thus says Pharaoh
Pharaoh is an earthly picture of our truest enemy, Satan
Satan, one of God’s beautifully created angels is cast out of heaven because he desires the praise only God deserves
He believes he is worthy of glory only due God himself
Pharaoh wasn’t seen as just a man; he was a god in Egyptian belief since the prosperity and the might and the reputation of the Egyptian civilization rested on him
3 Then they said, “The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Please let us go a three days’ journey into the wilderness that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God, lest he fall upon us with pestilence or with the sword.”
Typical to allow workers to take time off to observe religious holidays
“Lest he fall upon us” isn’t a reference to Israel but to both Israel and Egypt
As occupants of Egypt, Moses and Aaron realized that any punishment that fell on Pharaoh would at least have some affect on them
4 But the king of Egypt said to them, “Moses and Aaron, why do you take the people away from their work? Get back to your burdens.”
This Pharaoh viewed the Israelites as a commodity and therefore valuable
Previous Pharaoh was threatened by them and wanted to exterminate them
5 And Pharaoh said, “Behold, the people of the land are now many, and you make them rest from their burdens!” 6 The same day Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters of the people and their foremen, 7 “You shall no longer give the people straw to make bricks, as in the past; let them go and gather straw for themselves. 8 But the number of bricks that they made in the past you shall impose on them, you shall by no means reduce it, for they are idle. Therefore they cry, ‘Let us go and offer sacrifice to our God.’ 9 Let heavier work be laid on the men that they may labor at it and pay no regard to lying words.”
Pharaoh’s heart is already hard
We’ll get into this idea in a few weeks
But this is evidence of where he already was
Immediately he made their task more difficult
Pharaoh’s strategy: create leadership distrust and disrupt Moses leadership
Gives them a literally impossible task
Has the foremen beaten (why wouldn’t the actual slaves be beaten)
This causes a breakdown in the leadership structure as they attack Moses
10 So the taskmasters and the foremen of the people went out and said to the people, “Thus says Pharaoh, ‘I will not give you straw. 11 Go and get your straw yourselves wherever you can find it, but your work will not be reduced in the least.’ ” 12 So the people were scattered throughout all the land of Egypt to gather stubble for straw. 13 The taskmasters were urgent, saying, “Complete your work, your daily task each day, as when there was straw.”

​

Used most likely for building temples
Mudbricks (https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/ancient-cultures/daily-life-and-practice/how-to-make-a-mudbrick/)
River clay + water to make thick mud
Add straw (1/2 lb per cubic foot of mud mix)
Kneed with bare feet for 4 days
Pour into molds and let dry on straw / sand floor
Wait a week for drying
Straw
Like modern rebar in concrete
Remove the straw (tebhen)
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Takes longer to dry (PRIMARY REASON THEY USED IT BACK THEN)
Fragile and easily broken
Cracks
Will lead quickly to MORE work
Stubble (qashsh meaning dried up)
Normal straw was already processed and prepared for use in making bricks or feeding to animals
Stubble was the part of the stalk left in the ground
Seen as useless
Had to be pulled by hand and then separated / broken up
The New American Commentary: Exodus 7. First Audience with Pharaoh: Harsh Results (5:1–14)

Stubble is the very short remaining stalks of plants after harvesting: the bit between the root and where the reaping scythe or sickle cut the plant. It was only a relatively poor substitute for straw, making the process of producing suitable bricks much harder, but it also was much harder to gather from harvested fields even when the season is right (requiring careful, tedious hand pulling and cutting) as compared to the purposely preserved (and usually bundled) straw and was almost hopelessly difficult to gather in the off season

Pictures
Building the temple of Amun (god of sun & air)
The New American Commentary: Exodus 7. First Audience with Pharaoh: Harsh Results (5:1–14)

Stubble is the very short remaining stalks of plants after harvesting: the bit between the root and where the reaping scythe or sickle cut the plant. It was only a relatively poor substitute for straw, making the process of producing suitable bricks much harder, but it also was much harder to gather from harvested fields even when the season is right (requiring careful, tedious hand pulling and cutting) as compared to the purposely preserved (and usually bundled) straw and was almost hopelessly difficult to gather in the off season

Pharaoh had made the task virtually impossible
Pharaoh had made the task virtually impossible

God Wants to Free You

While the enemy and sin only want your loyalty through enslavement, God invites you into freedom
What a contrast
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15 Then the foremen of the people of Israel came and cried to Pharaoh, “Why do you treat your servants like this? 16 No straw is given to your servants, yet they say to us, ‘Make bricks!’ And behold, your servants are beaten; but the fault is in your own people.”
“Your servants” = statement of loyalty and appeal
Blamed the Egyptians who were previously responsible for providing the straw
They appealed to meeting the quota as Pharaoh’s utmost concern which it wasn’t
He cared more about intentionally making them suffer AND building distrust in Moses
Their first response wasn’t to go to God but to go to Pharaoh (take the situation into their own hands)
First response wasn’t worship / prayer

Suffering is Never Something We Expect

14 And the foremen of the people of Israel, whom Pharaoh’s taskmasters had set over them, were beaten and were asked, “Why have you not done all your task of making bricks today and yesterday, as in the past?”
15 Then the foremen of the people of Israel came and cried to Pharaoh, “Why do you treat your servants like this? 16 No straw is given to your servants, yet they say to us, ‘Make bricks!’ And behold, your servants are beaten; but the fault is in your own people.”
“Your servants” = statement of loyalty and appeal
Blamed the Egyptians who were previously responsible for providing the straw
They appealed to meeting the quota as Pharaoh’s utmost concern which it wasn’t
He cared more about intentionally making them suffer AND building distrust in Moses
Their first response wasn’t to go to God but to go to Pharaoh (take the situation into their own hands)
First response wasn’t worship / prayer

Where do our expectations come from?

Two distinctions
Suffering is a consequence of sin
Suffering is not always directly tied to our specific sin
There’s something in us that tells us it shouldn’t be this way
We aren’t just talking about inconvenient things
We are talking about human sorrow, strife, and suffering
Do you ever feel you’ve been given an impossible task? Dealt an impossible hand?
Maybe you feel the kind of hopelessness that the Israelites probably felt when being given news
Let me remind you that it’s not God’s heart to give you intentionally painful things (is this true)?
But because He is always working, he allows these things that cruel masters intend to destroy our faith so that our faith and dependence will actually be built up and sometimes stripped away
We deserve a worse suffering than we’re getting
God being with us is more than we deserve
We deserve a worse suffering but without God with us
We tend to undervalue the presence of God
Suffering exposes faith
When things get hard - like really hard - what comes out of you? Accusation? Complaining? Worship?
Where do you go when your expectations aren’t met?

Unmet Expectations with God can cause us to lower all other expectations and spiral into depression

A picture of our human bondage and of the bondage of sin
Sin makes demands of us that sooner or later will be impossible for us to meet
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We’ll see later in Exodus that when you take away the human oppression, the people’s hearts still run back to dead idols
They actually attempt to embrace the symbols that the people who oppressed them justified their actions for in the first place
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Backwards nature of sin
You may feel like you’re in control of your sin - whatever it is - but eventually it WILL OVERTAKE YOU
The law makes demands
Every time - I can literally look back at each and every attempt I’ve made to be the master of my sin, keeping it contained and controlled in a nice little compartment and every time at some point probably sooner than I realize it
Maybe you think you’re dabbling in a nice little suburban kiddie pool of secret sin but what you don’t realize is that you’re actually in a life raft full of holes in a vast ocean and the sharks are circling
More will be demanded of you than you can bear
The good news is that it’s not too late
Sin demands sacrifice
Mercy and grace are waiting if you’ll surrender the mess you’ve constructed to God
As the story of Exodus will continue to show us, even when we expect that there is no way God could redeem or save that’s WHO HE IS
IT’S WHAT HE DOES

Exodus is about rescue from human bondage and rescue from sin’s bondage.

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Example of the anxiety of trying to expect my birthday celebration
Unrealistic expectations of gifts
14 And the foremen of the people of Israel, whom Pharaoh’s taskmasters had set over them, were beaten and were asked, “Why have you not done all your task of making bricks today and yesterday, as in the past?”
15 Then the foremen of the people of Israel came and cried to Pharaoh, “Why do you treat your servants like this? 16 No straw is given to your servants, yet they say to us, ‘Make bricks!’ And behold, your servants are beaten; but the fault is in your own people.”
“Your servants” = statement of loyalty and appeal
Blamed the Egyptians who were previously responsible for providing the straw
They appealed to meeting the quota as Pharaoh’s utmost concern which it wasn’t
He cared more about intentionally making them suffer AND building distrust in Moses
Their first response wasn’t to go to God but to go to Pharaoh (take the situation into their own hands)
First response wasn’t worship / prayer
17 But he said, “You are idle, you are idle; that is why you say, ‘Let us go and sacrifice to the Lord.’ 18 Go now and work. No straw will be given you, but you must still deliver the same number of bricks.”

Fallen Conditions

More strategy: he ignores reality of what’s going on
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Insults them and calls them lazy
First response wasn’t worship / prayer
Idle hands are the problem to him when he really knows it’s the cruelty of his own decisions causing their complaint
19 The foremen of the people of Israel saw that they were in trouble when they said, “You shall by no means reduce your number of bricks, your daily task each day.”
I think there’s a statement of selfishness buried in here
I don’t know that they are speaking of God’s people when they say us
Their concerns are for themselves as foreman
20 They met Moses and Aaron, who were waiting for them, as they came out from Pharaoh; 21 and they said to them, “The Lord look on you and judge, because you have made us stink in the sight of Pharaoh and his servants, and have put a sword in their hand to kill us.”
Using God to blame others
Low view of God, high fear of Pharaoh
Moses didn’t make them stink as Pharaoh was already oppressing them
Things were not going well before this
People didn’t abandon faith in God but rather believed that Moses and Aaron hadn’t been obedient in some way (blamed their leaders) fueled by the belief that a Good God doesn’t let bad things happen to his people
22 Then Moses turned to the Lord and said, “O Lord, why have you done evil to this people? Why did you ever send me? 23 For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has done evil to this people, and you have not delivered your people at all.”
Moses mistakenly thought that his actions are what led to the oppression increase
God was working out a sovereign plan
We too overemphasize our significance
We think we are the cause because our behavior does have consequence but God is somehow always the cause
Extreme language jump “not delivered your people at all”
Moses clearly saw himself as a pawn in the game and not a participant
Approval (or loss of approval) exposes our true identity
By the end we’ve made a huge leap from the end of chapter 4
Moses is confident and seems convinced of God’s directive
The elders and leaders are confident in Moses and are worshipping God
At the end of 5 the foreman are sure that Moses has failed them and in turn God
Moses doesn’t understand his calling and thinks God is absent
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.
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The New American Commentary: Exodus 7. First Audience with Pharaoh: Harsh Results (5:1–14)

Stubble is the very short remaining stalks of plants after harvesting: the bit between the root and where the reaping scythe or sickle cut the plant. It was only a relatively poor substitute for straw, making the process of producing suitable bricks much harder, but it also was much harder to gather from harvested fields even when the season is right (requiring careful, tedious hand pulling and cutting) as compared to the purposely preserved (and usually bundled) straw and was almost hopelessly difficult to gather in the off season

Pharaoh had made the task virtually impossible

Making Bricks

Used most likely for building temples
Mudbricks (https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/ancient-cultures/daily-life-and-practice/how-to-make-a-mudbrick/)
River clay + water to make thick mud
Add straw (1/2 lb per cubic foot of mud mix)
Kneed with bare feet for 4 days
Pour into molds and let dry on straw / sand floor
Wait a week for drying
Straw
Like modern rebar in concrete
Remove the straw (tebhen)
Takes longer to dry (PRIMARY REASON THEY USED IT BACK THEN)
Fragile and easily broken
Cracks
Will lead quickly to MORE work
​
Stubble (qashsh meaning dried up)
Normal straw was already processed and prepared for use in making bricks or feeding to animals
Stubble was the part of the stalk left in the ground
Seen as useless
Had to be pulled by hand and then separated / broken up
Pictures
Building the temple of Amun (god of sun & air)

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We often expect God’s presence to result in immediate, positive external results when the pattern is more often the opposite.
Takeaways
Exercise Your Role as an Ambassador
Expect Opposition & Suffering
Don’t underestimate the enemy
Meditate on Truth & Don’t Let Go
You cannot repeat the actual promises of God to yourself enough
Repeat the Gospel

Fallen Conditions

Control
Pride / Arrogance
Approval of Man
Conditional Trust
Suffering as a condition of a broken world
The brutal master of sin
Root vs Surface Idols explained
Believing God’s Words are lies meant to keep you from conforming and enjoying life on your own terms
Expecting when we carry out God’s commands, we’ll get more comfortable
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Expect Suffering

12 Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, 13 while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. 14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it 15 and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

12 Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. 13 But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. 14 If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. 15 But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler. 16 Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name.

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The Promise

God tells Jacob in a dream

15 Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.

Suffering Can Be Redemptive

Suffering Can Be Redemptive

And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Suffering Can Be Redemptive

Not a cause and effect situation like we want it to be
As if the result of confession is the end of suffering
But what I am saying from my own personal experience is that when the water starts to boil, things start to bubble up that you thought you could keep down forever
When a season of suffering descended on me a few years ago, one of the purposes - not the purpose as if they is only one - that He used that for was to expose my loyalty to the master of sin in my life
He drew me to a place of unbearable brokenness over the things I had done
In those moments, you lose your ability to play two-faced and maintain a dual personality
You realize that you have to give a lot of energy to maintaining your sin containers, the limits and bounds that we create to try to fence in our most shameful admissions
When all of your emotional energy is demanded somewhere else, you can’t maintain that anymore
There is grace in this! This is actually part of God’s redemption of hard and difficult circumstances
Our perspective shifts permanently in ways that it literally CANNOT without the temperature rising
Phone call with my dad from the hotel in Atlanta
God won’t allow me to trust in anything else and that makes me mad (I want concrete answers or some doctor I can rely on)
God’s won’t allow me to walk away because He is here

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Suffering Exposes our Focus & Faith

Be Free and Focus on the Precious Presence of God

See the True Value of the Presence of God

How important is God’s presence to you? God being with you in whatever you’re going through? How about in the middle of horrible suffering?

3 Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. 4 In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.

Does it bring you comfort?
Does it bring you comfort?
For me when I faced some of the worst suffering of my life a few years ago let me tell you this: it DIDN’T
I always expected that if and when I faced some legit suffering, the peace of God that surpassed all understanding would be at my disposal
I mean this is what I’d heard my whole life
Wasn’t that truth that God was with me going to become a strong, firm place for me to put my hands in the middle of a season of death, grief, and mourning?
Well sadly it didn’t work that way
I was angry and sometimes in my journal it’s evident that I just said “yeah, yeah but give me something to work with here God.”
Have you ever felt that way? Do you feel that way now?
Well thankfully by God’s grace he was patient with me and didn’t just cast me away
I found that when I engaged with him on these hard questions in the middle of my suffering, in the middle of some of the most profound doubt, fear, and inner rage, He didn’t back away
I’d lived in fear of every bringing these kind of things to him because I knew how people react to accusation and pointed questioning: they withdraw
But God wasn’t like this
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He was strong and able to handle it
Now I don’t want to advocate disrespect
God is still God so you can’t and shouldn’t just talk to him however you like
Let’s remember Pharaoh and not be people who forget or don’t acknowledge who He is
I’ve definitely done this and had to repent of it myself
And as I by no means have arrived on some imaginary shore of great understanding, here is what I would say to you from my own limited personal experience
It’s not that God’s presence didn’t or doesn’t have value
It’s that I didn’t put the right price on it
“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” or maybe “value is in the eye of the wanter”
This is WRONG
Our EYES and our MINDS are DECEPTIVE
We see beauty and ascribe worth to genuinely worthless things ALL THE TIME
The value of God’s presence is forever anchored and defined as an unchanging truth based on one thing: the crucified king of heaven, Jesus, on the cross in your place and mind
Before Jesus gave His life, the presence of God was not available to you and to me
Do you understand?
Without the cross, suffering would be just suffering ALONE
And the reality is that the suffering we deserve WITHOUT THE CROSS is worse than we could ever imagine
Unimaginable pain in retribution for our criminally wicked hearts and hopeless loneliness in separation from our heavenly Father
That’s something beyond suffering
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And the good news of the gospel is that any of us if we just admit and own the state of our hearts and the actions that they lead us to commit, if we acknowledge that we can’t save ourselves and point with every fiber of our lifestyles and every word we can testify with to the cross alone, God PROMISES His presence as a signed, sealed thing
No circumstance - from Egyptian genocide to your most truly heartbreaking loss - can stop that TRUTH from becoming REALITY
God is with us
This IS the gospel, the good news
It’s not the lie of temporary changed circumstances
The world is broken beyond our understanding, it’s groaning in pain more every day in creation and in humanity
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8 But God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

2 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

We aren’t in control
We aren’t in control

20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

We aren’t in control
We aren’t in control
God sees the whole picture yet knows the specific pain
Jesus bore the wait of the brokenness of the world
Jesus is a different master
Pharaoh / Sin: I’ll make this harder for you to succeed by taking something you need
Jesus: I’ll make this easier (yoke is easy, burden light) by giving you something you don’t deserve
Jesus has absorbed even our sin in all these areas (comfort, control, power, approval)
Because He’s a good master, He invites us - doesn’t force us - to leave behind our old ways TODAY and stand on new ground, live new lives
Follow him down the

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There’s something in us that tells us it shouldn’t be this way
We aren’t just talking about inconvenient things
We are talking about human sorrow, strife, and suffering
Do you ever feel you’ve been given an impossible task? Dealt an impossible hand?
Maybe you feel the kind of hopelessness that the Israelites probably felt when being given news
Let me remind you that it’s not God’s heart to give you intentionally painful things (is this true)?
But because He is always working, he allows these things that cruel masters intend to destroy our faith so that our faith and dependence will actually be built up and sometimes stripped away

​

We don’t expect consequences from being our own god

Pharoah positions himself in what is literally the most dangerous place you can be: in opposition to the God of the universe
Thus says God, thus says Pharaoh
Pharaoh is an earthly picture of our truest enemy, Satan
Satan, one of God’s beautifully created angels is cast out of heaven because he desires the praise only God deserves
He believes he is worthy of glory only due God himself
Pharaoh wasn’t seen as just a man; he was a god in Egyptian belief since the prosperity and the might and the reputation of the Egyptian civilization rested on him
We expect things to get better when we obey
We expect the approval of man

Gospel Expectation

No one ever expected Jesus to die our death and give us his life.
Expect suffering but never alone.
Expect God’s approval when it seems no one else is giving it.
Expect God to finish what he started
Are your currently or future unmet expectations of God causing you to miss his presence here and now?
Are you holding God at a distance until You see what He does? Open your eyes! See the cross! That’s what He’s done. See Jesus there with a savagely destroyed body, who’d been lashed and beaten worse than the Israelite slaves covered in his own innocent blood, through tears crying out to His Father “why have you forsaken me?” declaring “it is finished.”
Jesus was forced to make bricks without straw so you don’t have to. He was forced to suffer and ultimately die at the hands of OUR master, sin, who wouldn’t stop until blood had been shed.
And while the bricks the Israelites used to build with would ultimately crumble one day, Jesus blood became once and for all the solid foundation for anyone to stand on if they just surrender and trust him.
The cross has already spoken the final word. Look back. Look ahead to his return. He will wipe the tears. He will end the suffering. He will bring justice to Pharaoh and to any of the countless cruel masters that have overtaken and enslaved us.
Here’s our final expectation and this you can bank your entire life on: God will finish what He started.

Threats to our Control Expose Belief

Who’s word is final in your life?
When and how do you make statements like Pharaoh (“thus says [YOUR NAME]”)?

Suffering Exposes Faith

What is your first response to suffering? Worship? Complaining? Blaming? Extremism?
What are your expectations with suffering? Are you under-expecting suffering? Over-expecting?
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This isn’t meant to be depressing
Our tendency to be shocked when suffering happens stems from a misunderstanding of how broken A) our hearts really are and B) the world really is
Sin is not just a blemish, it’s a fracture, it’s a disruption, a severing, a massive rift
SIN IS WORSE THAN YOU THINK IT IS

Disproval Exposes Identity

Can your faith handle the pushback of others?
Where are you functioning like a pawn instead of a son or daughter?
Do you see yourself as a messenger? A student? A preservationist? A parent? Before you see yourself as a completely undeservingly loved son or daughter?
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Closing

Not a cause and effect situation like we want it to be
As if the result of confession is the end of suffering
But what I am saying from my own personal experience is that when the water starts to boil, things start to bubble up that you thought you could keep down forever
When a season of suffering descended on me a few years ago, one of the purposes - not the purpose as if they is only one - that He used that for was to expose my loyalty to the master of sin in my life
He drew me to a place of unbearable brokenness over the things I had done
In those moments, you lose your ability to play two-faced and maintain a dual personality
You realize that you have to give a lot of energy to maintaining your sin containers, the limits and bounds that we create to try to fence in our most shameful admissions
When all of your emotional energy is demanded somewhere else, you can’t maintain that anymore
There is grace in this! This is actually part of God’s redemption of hard and difficult circumstances
Our perspective shifts permanently in ways that it literally CANNOT without the temperature rising
Phone call with my dad from the hotel in Atlanta
God won’t allow me to trust in anything else and that makes me mad (I want concrete answers or some doctor I can rely on)
God’s won’t allow me to walk away because He is here

Closing

Follow Jesus down the impossible road
He already went all the way to the end - Calvary
It’s not new territory for Him
He won’t let you suffer alone
You don’t need the opinion of others who can see no more than you can in human site and perspective
You HAVE a Good Father who gave you His Son just to restore a relationship with you
Expect suffering but cling to the promise and the price of God’s presence in it
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Personal Applications

Slavery to Sin

Expectations / Suffering

My journal entries
They start full of faith and strong belief
But eventually they open into raw pain and struggle and often even anger with God
I’ve felt overwhelmed by suffering and lived the unmet expectations
My brother’s accident was so traumatic that the chances of recovery were lower than we first imagined
It would have taken a miracle to bring him fully back
Every time we made progress, there would be two steps back
He’s off the ventilator one day and the next they don’t know if he was deprived of oxygen and now he’s not responding the same
The darker that year seemed to get, the more I think I expected it was a set up for some grand healing
I even remember working on my brother’s eulogy the night before his memorial service and thinking “God are you going to have him show up at his own funeral? How cool and amazing would that be? You can do it!”
But then he didn’t
When my brother died and I eventually embraced that reality, I was and in a lot of ways still am sitting with God and saying “how could this be?”
“Why would you let it get worse when I expected at least that it would stay the same or hopeful that it would get better?”
What do I do with that? What do you do with your unmet expectations? Not for minor things like a grade on a paper or your kids eating habits but things that you know are good, God approved things?
A person you love disappointing you or saying something to you that really cuts deep
Finding out what you thought was just a minor ache is actually cancer
Deep longing to grow your family only to have another tragic miscarriage
Lord of the Rings
Boromere gets struck with arrows
The picture of the King still fighting motivates us
Picture Jesus, the warrior king
Wounded severely, holes in his hands
But he is still fighting
And while the truth that we win the war is something worth remembering, the motivation to keep fighting and enduring even as more enemies and more arrows come is from seeing our champion on the battlefield
He
Facebook Group
Over 15000 people at one point waiting and expecting something
Our eyes were often on the fight itself
Lift your eyes as see the one who is with you, Jesus
I don’t say this lightly or pretending that it’s easy
I’ve been in that place where the circumstances are genuinely overwhelming
I’ve stood in a hospital room watching life move out of someone
It feels impossible to focus on anything else in THOSE moments
I’
But I urge you as someone in the fight that the only thing that will really comfort and give you the hope you’re looking for is seeing Him and letting Him into those most pain-filled spaces in your heart
Jesus cried tears of blood in anxiety alone of going to the cross
Can you imagine the heartache He was going through?
Sometimes we focus only on the physical pain that He endured and when we’re feeling heartache and overwhelming depression and sadness that doesn’t seem to help like we’d hope
But put yourself in Jesus emotional state
Almost torn in two by HIS unswerving love for His own Father knowing He had to do what He was doing
On the other side, an overwhelming love for the broken humanity that itself was sacrificing Him, the people He had formed burdening His shoulders with our sin
Expect suffering but cling to the promise and the price of God’s presence in it

Takeaways

God is not a liar
God has not failed
God is not done
The treasure is God’s presence
If our goal is comfort and relief, we’re always going to be disappointed
In your presence there is fullness of joy (Psalm)
We have to train ourselves to make the deeper longer being God’s presence
It doesn’t come naturally because we are literally pushing against the entirety of our flesh
The Holy Spirit awakens it
The spiritual disciplines also matter
We are training so that when the circumstances come, we are prepared
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14 And the foremen of the people of Israel, whom Pharaoh’s taskmasters had set over them, were beaten and were asked, “Why have you not done all your task of making bricks today and yesterday, as in the past?”Here’s the second thing about Suffering is not always a result of our own sin.This is sometimes where we get it hot waterWe see someone suffering and like to believe it’s because of something they’ve doneAnd while that first point - suffering is a result of sin - may be true, it isn’t always directly connected to our ownWe tend to underestimate the brokenness of the world around usWhen sin entered into the garden, it fractured creation itselfDo we grasp that?It isn’t just some harmless thingThere are always casualties far beyond the parties involved15 Then the foremen of the people of Israel came and cried to Pharaoh, “Why do you treat your servants like this? 16 No straw is given to your servants, yet they say to us, ‘Make bricks!’ And behold, your servants are beaten; but the fault is in your own people.” Repetition of the phrase “your servants” is significantThese were the people of God appealing in loyalty to PharaohIf Pharaoh is a picture of the master of sin, don’t we attempt the same thing?We try to reason with it and pledge further allegiance but it’s all in vainThis isn’t a reasonable master but a ruthless overlord17 But he said, “You are idle, you are idle; that is why you say, ‘Let us go and sacrifice to the Lord.’ 18 Go now and work. No straw will be given you, but you must still deliver the same number of bricks.”Pharaoh is unfazedHis heart is already hardening which is clear in how he doesn’t seem to be paying attention to what anyone is saying but himselfHe repeats his reasoning - you are lazy people who need correction - and his command without hesitationHow will the foremen, the representatives of the people, respond? 19 The foremen of the people of Israel saw that they were in trouble when they said, “You shall by no means reduce your number of bricks, your daily task each day.” 20 They met Moses and Aaron, who were waiting for them, as they came out from Pharaoh; 21 and they said to them, “The Lord look on you and judge, because you have made us stink in the sight of Pharaoh and his servants, and have put a sword in their hand to kill us.” Right after aligning themselves with Pharaoh and realizing that won’t work, they attempt to align themselves with God, calling judgement on Moses and AaronThe “us”es that we see here are not “us” as in the whole people of GodThis is a personal “us” indicating their own situation is all that concerns themAnd just like they strategize in their approach to Pharaoh, they do the same with MosesIsn’t their response to all of this human? I find it not shocking or unfamiliar to see people who expect deliverance but then everything gets harder and they have strong feelings about itDon’t you?I know in the story God is writing in my life this has been the case many timesWhere do our expectations come from?As we talked about before with Moses, sometimes we deceive ourselves or believe modified half truths of what God has saidBut also build our expectations on how we KNOW it’s supposed to beSomething in us says that if God is involved in the story, THINGS SHOULD GET BETTERWhere God’s presence is there should be easier circumstances and easier situation and immediate freedom from hardship and painThis is not an outright wrong thingIt’s part of the compass inside of us crying out for the brokenness in us and outside of us to be correctedUsing God as a pawn in their ownCommon in both of their approaches is blame of other people“The fault is in your own people” in Verse 16“You have made us stink in the sight of Pharaoh and his servants, and put a sword in their hand to kill us.”“Kill us” reveals their expectation: finalityThey believe this is the beginning of the end rather than the continuation of the journey to freedomThey also have drifted from what is trueThey say to Moses “you have made us stink and put the sword in Pharaoh’s hand to kill us”Reality is that the people already stunk and were on the path of deathThis definitely didn’t come from Moses and also not from God which is who Moses blames in the next verse22 Then Moses turned to the Lord and said, “O Lord, why have you done evil to this people? Why did you ever send me? 23 For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has done evil to this people, and you have not delivered your people at all.”We need to train ourselves to not let go of the promises of God so quickly.Promises I have seen your affliction and know your suffering and will deliver you and bring you to the promised land. ()I will bring you up out of slavery. ()After Pharaoh refuses, and I strike Egypt, He will let you go. () “Why have You done evil to this people”“You have not delivered your people AT ALL”Moses basically says “I don’t know if you heard us the first time” and then repeats himselfThis is a hint at Moses own expectation for deliveranceHe somehow thought that he would say his piece and Pharaoh would go “sure, thanks for all the hard work these last few years”Even though God has explicitly told him what to expectAren’t we guilty of doing the same thing?We have expectations of God sometimes based on things he just hasn’t said at allBut other times we have expectations of God based contrary to what he actually has saidIn chapter 4 when God meets Moses and gives him the inside scoop on everything, He tells Moses that Pharaoh will not respond without a strong handHe tells him that his heart will harden and be hardened as part of God’s plan to get them to freedomIt’s not clear if Moses passed this little piece of information on to the Elders when he returned or notWe edit God’s promises to make them work best for usWow that is boldDeliverance was in Moses’ DNANot killed immediately at birthPlaced in a basket that DOESN’T get destroyed in the NILEAllowed to live in the royal householdSought out, met and communicated with by God personally in the wildernessI want to commend Moses for bringing his feelings to GodOften we don’t do that and we do what the foremen did and bring our thoughts to people firstBut what I fear and want to call out in Moses and confess to doing myself is speaking to God without reveranceThe passion of our feelings doesn’t give us permission to disregard who God isPharaoh might have said “Who is God? I don’t care what he has to say” directly but sometimes we send the same message with how haphazard we are in how we approach himApproach Him with our feelings in suffering but recognize who He is; and repent when we don’tThe Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

Takeaways

God is not a liar / broken His promise

Whenever we are prone to believe this, we have to search truth: scriptureThis is why the daily discipline of reading and knowing God’s Word is so importantWe can’t defend ourselves against lies unless we have truth to hold it up againstWe need to know what God’s promises actually areJesus speaking to his brothers, his followers, his disciples, his friends at the meal they shared before he went to the crossJohn 14 - 16 If I go prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself so you may be with me. ()If I go, I will send the Helper [the Holy Spirit] to be with you forever. ()I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. ()Because I live, you also will live. ()The Spirit will guide you into all truth. ()The Spirit will glorify me and take what is mine and declare it to you. ()You won’t see me for a little while but you will see me again. ()You will weep and be sorrowful but your sorrow will turn into joy. ()When you see me again, no one will take your joy from you. ()
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