Moses

Introduction to Series

Exodus is the second book in the Bible and it is a book of transitions.

It takes the Israelite people from slavery to freedom

From Egypt to the promised land

It focuses on the idea of a group of people in which God has chosen to dwell.

Exodus tracks the movement of the Israelites to Mt Sinai to hear from God and learn how they are called to live in such a way that God will dwell among them.

But first He needs to free them. And He does that through a guy named Moses.

The next couple weeks we will look at Moses specifically

Then freedom

Then Mt Sinai

Then the desert.

But for today as we get into the message we are going to look at this idea:

Instead of looking for what we need to do, we need to look to who has come to us

We often try to look anywhere we can for a meaningful life

IN ch 2 of Exodus Moses is seeking without finding an identity. By the time we get to near the end of ch 2 moses refers to himself as a sojourner, someone who really doesn’t have a home.

At this point Moses is wandering. He is trying to figure out who he is with little success.

And he tries to connect with the Hebrews an Egyptian, then a Hebrew as a Hebrew, and neither work.

He is like a beach ball in a pool when you try and put it under water. You think you are getting somewhere but then it pops up. Again and again, no matter what Moses does, he continues to wander, for now.

moses just doesn’t fit. Doesn’t know what to do. Have we ever felt like that? How do we live when we live in a sort of divide?

Moses doesn’t really know what to do

Because Moses was a Hebrew raised in Pharao’s house, he seems to have a hard time figuring out who he is.

Have you ever had to figure out who we are

Augustine said in his book confessions, “I have become a question to myself.”

We see Moses try to figure out who he is by himself. And we will see how that goes.

Vigilante

Exodus 2:11–12 ESV

One day, when Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and looked on their burdens, and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his people. He looked this way and that, and seeing no one, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.

Moses attempted justice. A hebrew, his people, were being abused and he killed the egyptian for it.

It is a perverted form of justice.

Moses is trying to rescue but has a hard time with it.

Even moreso in the second example.

Mediator

Exodus 2:13–14 ESV

When he went out the next day, behold, two Hebrews were struggling together. And he said to the man in the wrong, “Why do you strike your companion?” He answered, “Who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid, and thought, “Surely the thing is known.”

Moses tries a different tactic, and that doesn’t work.

He is a failed rescuer

Acts 7:23–28 ESV

“When he was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brothers, the children of Israel. And seeing one of them being wronged, he defended the oppressed man and avenged him by striking down the Egyptian. He supposed that his brothers would understand that God was giving them salvation by his hand, but they did not understand. And on the following day he appeared to them as they were quarreling and tried to reconcile them, saying, ‘Men, you are brothers. Why do you wrong each other?’ But the man who was wronging his neighbor thrust him aside, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge over us? Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?’

No matter what Moses does it does not work, does not fit the situation

The barber’s basin in Don Quixote

Don Quixote is a novel written in the 16th century about a guy named Don Quixote who more than anything, wants to be a knight errant. He wants to ride around on a horse and rescue people and find treasure and do all the things that knights would do.

The problem is that he cannot find any of the things that knights would do and he has read so many books on knights errant that he thinks that everything he runs into is an adventure waiting to happen.

Early on he sees windmills in the distance and charges at them because he thinks they are giants. TO protect him and others he attacks them.

Well part way through the book he sees in the distance a man on horseback with something shiny on his head

“Shortly thereafter, Don Quixote espied a man on horseback with something on his head that glittered as if it had been made of gold.”

And so he attacks the man, steals his helmet, puts it on and his squire sancho panza laughs because it is not a helmet it is a barbers basin. A barber was travelling in between cities and put the basin on his head in order to protect himself from the elements. It would have been what you would catch hair and shaving cream into. And Don Quixote thought it, because it shimmered, was a magical helmet.

“I laugh because I was thinking of what a huge head the pagan owner of this helmet had, for it looks just like a barber’s basin.” “Do you know what I imagine, Sancho? I think that this famous enchanted helmet, by some strange accident, must have come into the hands of someone who knew not the worth thereof

He perceives something to be of great value and takes it from the barber, but really it is just a simple brass barber’s basin.

I share that story because I think our lives are filled with barber’s basins in our own life .

What Don Quixote believes is a magical golden helmet is really just something that a barber used to put the scraps of his customer’s hair into

We do this all the time. What we think will solve everything ends up being a barber’s basin.

What we think will lead to a flourishing life is really just brass

Moses had hoped to be a sort of a hero in these instances, wanting, needing to fit in, but in reacting a few times he still remains displaced.

Albert Camus calls this the absurd. The moment we find that the golden helmet is really brass.

Moses is displaced

Moses is displaced. He has tried to help but comes up wanting every time. He has tried to be a part of something but cannot get the right fit.

Look at what happens when he goes to Midian and helps the priests daughters but even they leave him behind

Exodus 2:20 ESV

He said to his daughters, “Then where is he? Why have you left the man? Call him, that he may eat bread.”

Moses is invited back in, but as a foreigner. He marries Zipporah and they have a son. The son’s name outs Moses for the way that he identifies himself.

Exodus 2:22 ESV

She gave birth to a son, and he called his name Gershom, for he said, “I have been a sojourner in a foreign land.”

Moses calls himself a sojourner, a temporary dweller or a newcomer. He has no inherited rights.

He is not Egyptian (they are chasing him)

He is not accepted by the Hebrews

He is welcomed into the Priest of Midian but he is not a midianite.

These scenes play out in our lives all the time. We work and try and attempt to fix or create or develop and we end up coming up wanting.

Things just don’t fit right. What he attempts for doesn’t work out the way he hoped

it’s not that Moses doesn’t know what to do it’s that he doesn’t know who he belongs to. He doesn’t really know who He is

Moses cannot seem to find his way no matter the group he is with.

His mom is forced to abandon him

He is raised by someone else

he tries to protect an israelite and fails

he tries to mediate an argument between israelites and fails

Being displaced is not bad It means we get to wrestle with Augustine’s statement, “I have become a question to myself.”

This is where Moses finds himself. He flees and becomes a shepherd, not as a massive life plan but because that was all that was left to do.

What do we do here? What do we do when we feel displaced? That we can’t find our way?

the place of displacement

The encouragement is that as Christians we are supposed to be displaced, we live in that gap all the time.

As the church in the world, we are called to be a bit displaced. to not fit in

But we have to ask the question, in what way are we called to be displaced?

It’s not that we don’t fit into the worlds structures and systems but rather we do fit into Gods systems and structures and that way of life is peculiar to the world?

put in hebrews here.

It’s not just resistance like Moses is resisting. It is living differently by fitting into the Kingdom of God.

And that as we belong to God we live differently in the world.

We look to the God who is looking at us

Exodus 2:23–25 ESV

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. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.

This is an interesting caveat in the book. It seems out of place and yet there is no real book of Exodus without it. We get a sense of God’s plan, His heart and posture.

He was listening. Heard thier groaning. He paid attention to the suffering of the israelites.

God responds to His people because of their need and His covenant. By His own life He would hold up to His end.

So when He hears his people suffering, He responds. Because He said He would.

“Because the poor are plundered, because the needy groan, I will now arise,” says the Lord. “I will place him in the safety for which he longs [protect them from those who verbally abuse them].” (Psalm 12:5 esv)

God sees us because He said He would

God looks at our suffering because He has not forgotten us

We will see in the upcoming weeks how God goes to great lengths to free the Israelites from captivity

How He not only sees their suffering but He acts according to their freedom.

When everything feels displaced

We can’t move to far past this portion of the text. It is important to know what God is planning because some of this seems like Chaos.

God is working to create order. And order cannot be normalized when people are enslaved. Enslavement is always chaotic.

abuse of power always leads to chaos.

in this moment of chaos we see

Right now we need to hear that God is looking and seeing and He knows.

It is the space between understanding and action.

We are often in this space of seeing the problem, seeing the chaos, and not knowing what to do to solve it.

But first, as the church we have to ask, do we know whose we are?

that we may feel displaced but are actually home in Christ.

we are called to be peculiar in the world. But peculiar in a specific way. We are called to not really fit the patterns of the world. But to be able to fit in Christ

if you don’t seem to fit in this morning, good. Have you searched in the world for enchanted golden helmets and only found brass sinks? Good. Christ has invited us to fit in with Him and be peculiar in the world

Because when we understand we have a God who is invested and interested and is working, then instead of trying to solve or become something we aren’t, we can see the God who is looking at us and trust Him as He leads to solution and identity.

When we look to God He becomes our source for wisdom and action

When we look to God we see that He gathers His people in family.

In God we have the source for our solution

In God we have the home for our displacement