The God Who Cares

Welcome:

before we dive into this morning passage I think it would be important maybe even helpful to know there is no temptation that is not common to all.

Thanking about this topic of anxiety, depression, fear

these are issues where I can identify

what I want us to grab a hold in the next couple of weeks is that fear and anxiety can become informative rather then dis-stressing

Revelation 2:23–25 ESV

and I will strike her children dead. And all the churches will know that I am he who searches mind and heart, and I will give to each of you according to your works. But to the rest of you in Thyatira, who do not hold this teaching, who have not learned what some call the deep things of Satan, to you I say, I do not lay on you any other burden. Only hold fast what you have until I come.

Introduction:

This text represents a massive shift in the Exodus narrative

The introduction, we might say, is closed in these few verses

God’s behind-the-scenes work comes into focus or to the center

and, following this short interlude, His massive plan of deliverance is displayed

In these short verses, God has seen fit to reveal part of His reasoning for His actions

And this is a gracious thing

God brings to view a greater confidence in Him, which is the only way we can face our fears

He shows that His people should call on Him in prayer

They should trust Him as He works

and rest in His unmatched blessings

I want to start our two week sermon series with a question:

How do we navigate the fear, worries, and unknowns of life?

“Every single person who ever lived is personally familiar with fear. It is an inescapable feature of earthly life “ ( Running Scared - 9)

Freedom or oppression both bring fear:

Both oppression and freedom can incite (activate) fear

Freedom resolves the fear and anxiety associated with persecution and oppression, but it increases the fear of personal failure. (20)

With freedom comes more choices, which means more opportunities to get it wrong

Pick your poison, they both contribute to fear and anxieties

How do we deal with Sin? (By us or to us) Medicate or Exterminate

Do we talk about it

Simply live with it

or do we try to make friends with it

Two basic ways ( The secular way and the Christian way)

The Secular way -

We go to a therapist and they give us a disorder, syndrome, or a condition

they prescribe medicine

they listen to us & we come back next week

No healing only therapy that tells you this fearful, worried, anxious person is who you are so just learn to live with it

There’s NO deliverance because our issues are either natured into us from a sick culture

or nurtured by jacked-up parents

If your problem is outside of you what can you do?

The Christian way

We go towards discipleship/counseling that uses the Bible to address our fears and worries and our sin as it points us towards hope, purpose and our God-given giftedness.

Healing and deliverance have been purchased by Christ and both are available.

Yet our sin and satan plans will have to be dealt with thru the power of the Holy Spirit and promises of God’s Word.

You see if I have a problem within me and Jesus provides the remedy, I can experience victory.

The Truth about fear

Our fear, worries, and doubts aren’t waiting patiently to leave.

Fear is a core issue in many of our lives and must be brought to the surface to be defeated.

Fear is impatient, self-protecting, and skeptical (Fear has tried God once and He didn’t work)

Fear often skews reality

Fear runs from

It runs from things, people, responsibility

Fear knows the danger but it does not where to find peace and rest

Just when someone is moving towards biblical community fears default kicks in and reminds them people are unreliable and you can only trust on yourself.

So they slip back into an independent life characterized by self-control and self-protection

Let fear point us to a knowledge of God, and let the Spirit of God, by way of Scripture, teach us the knowledge of God

The Remedy for fear

Knowledge of God is the only means by which we can banish fear and replace it with faith

Prayer, fasting, and casting our cares on the Lord are all responses to knowing God; Knowing God is first

The opposite of fear is not courage, it is faith.

Before we create action steps toward healing and wholeness

we must realize that without a foundation of knowing God it will all be in vain.

Two Great Exodus’: Israel’s & yours

The Exodus story

A people who only knew slavery (400 yrs -This was sin done to them that has affected everything about their life and identity)

A Slavery that’s only getting worse

A God who is mighty to Save

Main Idea: The God who heard and delivered Israel is the same God who hears us and delivers us in the midst of our fears, worries, and unknowns of life

The God Who hears v.23

So we can pray

V. 23 “During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God.”

v.23 begins with an important fact:

“the king of Egypt died.”

This meant Moses could return to Egypt as a prophet and not as a fugitive

Despite the change in government, the slavery remained severe

We read, “their cry for help ascended to God.”

Picture the intense grief, distress, and agony here in these cries

They had nothing—no power, no property, and no prestige

Some people would say, “They didn’t have a prayer,”

but in fact a prayer was the one thing they did have

“The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God” (v. 23b)

The Bible uses three different words to describe the desperate prayers of God’s people

Together they express intense grief, bitter distress, and painful agony

Turn to Psalm 5:2 “Give attention to the sound of my cry, my King and my God, for to you do I pray.”

Another psalmist wrote:

Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord;

O Lord, hear my voice.

Let your ears be attentive

to my cry for mercy. (130:1, 2)

When we hear of Groaning it typically is done vocally to indicate pain

Sometimes without words one can understand

Deut 26:6-9 says; “And the Egyptians treated us harshly and humiliated us and laid on us hard labor. Then we cried to the Lord, the God of our fathers, and the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. And the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great deeds of terror, with signs and wonders. And he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.”

Do you feel their desperation?

Harsh treatment, humiliation, hard labor, affliction, toil & oppression

On occasion God’s people find themselves in such desperate hardship that the only thing they can do is groan for God’s help

God hears our prayers

The God who was working behind the scenes now enters the scene explicitly

remember that God is always at work in our lives, even when he seems absent

When we pray our prayers are being heard by God

Even when we’re not sure what to Pray Romans 8:26 says; “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.”

One of the most encouraging reminders in the New Testament on this thought is 1 Peter 5:6-7 “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.”

When we’re suffering with fear and anxiety, Peter says, humble yourselves before God

This means that we’re to trust him even when he’s not doing what we like

or visibly working in our lives as we might expect

Humble yourself, trusting in the way that he’s ordering your life, even when you can’t see what he’s doing

All people what to know three things from us:

Do you care? Can I trust you? Can you help me?

Listen, God cares, We can trust God, and He can help us

I know theres some in here this morning that have been struggling with feeling like God doesn’t care about you and what you’re going through

May this passage assure you: God does care!

The God Who Acts

So we can trust

Exodus 2:24 “And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.”

God heard - God remembers

In covenantal language, the term “remember” (zākar) should not be misunderstood to suggest that God was somehow unaware or unconcerned previously.

In other words, to say “God remembered his covenant” is to say “God decided to honor the terms of his covenant at this time.”

God’s covenantal memory gets underlined here

God remembers His unbreakable promise of salvation

To “remember” something means to bring it to the front burner and act on it

The term “covenant” appears for the first time in Exodus here

It appears 25 times in Genesis

The best definition of “covenant” may be in The Jesus Story Book Bible:

“a never stopping, never giving up, un-breaking, always and forever love” (Sally Lloyd-Jones, Story Book, 36).

Let’s look at God’s covenant promise

Look at Gen 15:4-6 “And behold, the word of the Lord came to him: “This man shall not be your heir; your very own son shall be your heir.” And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.”

Go down to vv. 13-14 “Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions.”

When God hears

God is about to act

God is ready to deliver his people from their bondage.

He is going to act in history for their salvation.

To emphasize the power of the living God, the Bible uses four active verbs:

God hears, remembers, sees, and knows

God not only sees, but he also hears:

Look at Psalm 34:15 “The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous and his ears toward their cry.”

When God sees and hears, he remembers

Thankfully, what he remembers is not his people’s sin but the covenant of grace, his unbreakable promise of salvation

It is the promise God gave to Eve that her offspring would crush the devil and all his evil works (Gen. 3:15)

It is the promise God gave to Abraham who promises that all nations would be blessed through him

Gen 17:7-8 “And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.””

Turn to Hebrews 8:6 “But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises.”

In Christ we have been brought into a new and better covenant

If you belong to God through Jesus Christ, you belong to His eternal covenant

“his never stopping, never giving up, un-breaking, always and forever love.”

God’s purpose of redemption and mission given to Abraham continues in Exodus.

This same God continues on the same mission of reclaiming worshipers today

The God Who Knows

So we can rest

Exodus 2:25 “God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.”

God Saw - God knew

To know = “to revealed Himself to them.”

What the Scripture says is that God knew his people. He knew all about them. The word suggests intimate, personal acquaintance with all the particulars of their suffering.

Tripp - “The problem is not that God is not here or that he’s inactive: the problem is that we don't see him.” (98)

God hears, so we can pray

God Acts, so we can trust

God Knows and He meets our needs despite our obstacles and weaknesses, so we can rest.

Because of who God is, we can pray, trust, even in the worst circumstances of our lives

what we need more than anything else today is to see God in the middle of our fear, anxiety, and problems

We need to see Jesus and what he’s done for us

and what his heart is towards us, and then to see ourselves through his eyes

So What?

Both God and fear speaks: which one are we listing too?

Should I listen to fear? Yes and no

Yes - Fear will tell us what we are trusting in?

What is your fear telling you?

I am afraid of failure?

What are you wanting more than anything?

Success?

Recognition from someone?

Material comfort?

Not to disappoint (Fear of man - become an idol)

I am afraid of getting hurt?

What does it say about what you want more than anything?

Fear of being out of control = controlling insecure person - control has become your idol.

No - Fear declares to be the boss (of you and others)

Controlling - self-protecting

Fear sets the expectation and if they don’t happen…

No - Fear demands relief, now!

Waiting on God…. be patient with others… NO! NOW!

Fear produces impulsive living off the end of your nose life.

Matt 6:23-34

24 “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.

25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

34 “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

Fear knows the problems but does know where to find peace and rest

Matt. 11:28-30

28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Fear is personal and so only the pursuit of a Person can combat our fear.

To Know God is to trust God

Jer 9:23-24

Thus says the Lord: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the Lord.”

Pursue the God who speaks - I am in control and I care for you.

Response:

Will we imitate Jesus in the wilderness or the Israelites in the wilderness?

Our faith should be fed with the trustworthiness of God.

God asked us not to take a leap in blind faith but to acknowledge God’s history of faithfulness and trust Him