Delivered: Exodus 1-2

The Story

OVERALL SUMMARY

Exodus - focus on God’s work for His people

Christ - focus on God’s work for His people

Key Points/Passages

Verse 3 - basket = tebah = ark

The name “Moses” from the water, also a Hebrew component, Pharaoh’s daughter recognizes heritage

1) Take note of who God used to protect Moses, and ultimately His people (at this point, up to 4 years old)

Moses’ mother

Sister

Pharaoh’s daughter

(Pharaoh - source of worst fear: mother meets Pharaoh’s daughter and God turns a circumstance of fear toward hope and salvation)

Instead of Moses’ death, God delivers in an unanticipated, wonderful way (vv 5-6)

2) Right response, wrong reaction (at this point, 40 years old)

Moses is properly upset (v 11) - sense of justice

“Looks this way and that” - improper response, pre-meditated, and tried to conceal it

But he feels his “brothers” are ungrateful

Flees to Midian

Similarities there, not exactly a friend of Israelites

Includes sections of Sinai peninsula

Midianites are descendants of Abraham, through wife Keturah

A kindred spirit, ideal place for Moses to be

Note: Moses’ first attempt to deliver and help his people (v 12)

ON OWN STRENGTH AND WISDOM

God is at work with Moses, in a way he did not recognize at the time (vv 13-14)

Israelites didn’t recognize his attempt to help them and he’s confused, afraid

Just like US - during time of misery and emergency, could end up as blessing

Moses’ arrogance got him and others in potential trouble (Egyptians would investigate, and blame Israelite slaves)

(foreshadowing: people would later look back to this time and think of them as good times, even after God helps them)

Moses wanted to help

People were suspiscious

God works in Moses in Midian

Encounters Jethro’s daughters, fights off shepherds

Sense of justice - God will use that

QUESTION: What about you can God use? Are you open to it?

Moses marries Zipporah, a non-Israelite - God’s people are always going to be determined by faith, not flesh

Child - Gershom = “alien there”

3) God’s Perfect Timing - the timing of God’s response

Moses’ Perspective (after 40 years in Midian, he’s now 80)

Separated from his homeland (Egypt)

Separated from his own people (Israelites)

Failure to help them

Failure as an Egyptian

Unwelcome with both Egypt and Israelites

A wanted man

Now permanently in some obscure place

Alone with a people of a different religion

It’s going to take an amazingly supernatural action of sovereign God for this “washed-up exile” to be used by God, to play a role for God.

“I have become an alien in a foreign land” - point of clarity for him

“Come to Jesus” moment

How would you feel? How would you respond?

SUMMARY - How’s this gonna go down?

1 - Pharaoh is dead, and anyone else who would be against Moses

2 - Israelite situation is getting worse

3 - HUGE - People begin to PRAY

They don’t realize what He is doing for them already

Will they accept His response to their prayer?

4 - God “remembers” His covenant (Abraham) - He “calls it to mind, desires to honor His promise

5 - God desires to reveal Himself to Israelites

God’s people are being watched over by a sovereign

He will not let this suffering continue without a good purpose and result!

POINT: He allows suffering, desires us to trust Him through it

CLOSING

Bulletin questions (?)

Know this, God is working, right now, to...

help you, support you, hear you, walk with you, lead you

Maybe you don’t notice - be still, know He’s God

Psalm 46:10 NASB95

“Cease striving and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”

THE EXALTED GOD IS ON YOUR SIDE, AGAINST THIS WORLD

Let Him use you

Moses learned - firsthand (despite weaknesses, we’ll learn more)

He wants you to know Him, intimately

He wants to use you, for His plan

Continue to reveal Him to everyone, everyday, in every situation