"plucked From The River" Series

“PLUCKED FROM THE RIVER” Ex. 2:1-10

FBCF – 4/11/21

Jon Daniels

INTRO – Start this message w/ some questions:

- How many of you struggle w/ unworthiness or feeling unqualified to do something?

- How many of you wrestle w/ leadership issues?

- How many of you sometimes feel overwhelmed by life’s circumstances & trials?

- How many of you wrestle w/ family issues & struggles?

- How many of you get frustrated w/ the way people act sometimes, or are disappointed in the people around you sometimes?

- How many of you deal w/ anger issues, or inferiority issues, or have run from a difficult situation or a mistake you’ve made?

- How many of you have made excuses when you know God was leading you to do something?

- How many of you feel like you’re too old to really be used by God?

These are some of the characteristics & traits of Moses that we are going to see over the course of the next several weeks as we begin this series, “The Life of Moses.” We will explore his life & how God used him in some extraordinary ways. We’ll see how Moses’ struggles & failures sometimes cost him, but how God continued to use him. We learn some valuable Biblical principles & truths that we can apply to our own lives to help us navigate through the challenges that we all face as we live in this fallen world. Specifically, today we are going to wrestle w/ some of the challenges & issues that face families in our world today.

EXPLANATION – Exodus 2:1-10

When most of us think of Moses, we probably think about the guy who got the 10 Commandments from God. Those who are old enough may get a picture of Charlton Heston in their minds from the movie that was produced in 1956.

Certainly, the delivery of the 10 Commandments to Moses was a major moment in his life & in the lives of God’s people. But as we examine Moses’ life, we can learn so much about human behavior, about leadership, about faith & trust in God & His plans. We can learn about sin & its consequences – that God is no respecter of persons. We can see what happens when God’s people choose to obey the Lord & walk w/ Him, & we can see what happens when His people deliberately choose to ignore Him & turn their backs on Him.

But let’s look at the interesting beginning of the life of Moses, long before God met him on Mt. Sinai & gave him those stone tablets. And as we do, we will see how the events surrounding his birth can help us relate to some of the issues that we face in our families today.

APPLICATION – We need to understand the importance of our families.

THE WAR AGAINST THE FAMILY – Exodus 1:15-22

The family has always been a favorite target of Satan & his forces of evil. There is a war being waged against the family today. It started in the Garden of Eden w/ the first family – Adam & Eve. After their fall in Genesis 3 & sin entered the world, the very next event we see in Genesis 4 is the first recorded murder in history, & that was another direct attack on the family as Cain murdered his brother, Abel. Satan has always targeted the family.

- NOBTS – President Landrum Leavell – "If you lose your marriage & family, you’ll lose your ministry."

- Satan knows that & deliberately targets pastors’ families w/ some of his most devastating & debilitating attacks.

o Pray for your church staff & other pastors you know – our marriages, our kids, our families.

Chuck Lawless – Evangelism prof @ SEBTS – 10 Reasons Satan Attacks Families:

1. He aims in general to destroy what God has created.

2. He wants to destroy the witness of our marriage. Ephesians 5 - Marriage is a picture of the gospel.

3. Satan hates our children. He delights when our adult decisions affect our children by turning them against God and the church.

4. The enemy wants to take out the primary place of disciplemaking. The first place for making disciples is in the home.

5. He wants to harm our witness. He can’t rip us from God’s kingdom, but he can dim our light for the gospel.

6. He strives to remove people from ministry.

7. Satan wants to redirect the church away from evangelism. He will do whatever he can to keep us from taking the gospel to our non-believing neighbors and the nations – including so attacking our homes that our pastors spend all their time trying to put out family fires.

8. He always wants to hinder prayer. Peter warned us that unhealthy marriages block our prayer channel (1 Peter 3:7). Satan will always aim to rob us of power by weakening our prayers.