Power And Pride Series

Power and Pride

Jeffery Anselmi / General

Exodus / Pride; Hardness of Heart / Exodus 4:28–31; Exodus 5:1–8; Exodus 7:1–13

God judges pride and power, and he humbles those who believe they are above him.

INTRODUCTION

• Today we continue with our series in Exodus; we will see that Moses, despite his objections and excuses, God was going to use him to deliver His people out of Egypt!

• We will have before us today a story of power and pride and how the perceived power led to Pharoah displaying a lot of pride, which led to Pharoah not being willing to listen to God, which led to his stubborn heart.

• Pharoah has a problem with pride. The pride emanates from the perceived power he thinks he possesses as Pharoah.

• This man does not think he is accountable to anyone; he believes himself to be God.

• It amazes me how little has changed throughout time, we may not look at ourselves as a god in the manner Pharoah did, but many of us are stuffed with a lot of pride, a pride that will not allow us to be wrong.

• The comic strip Zits chronicles the life of a 16-year-old named Jeremy, who meanders through typical teenage issues.

• He was recently shown clarifying some comments he made to his mother.

• He explained, “I’m not disagreeing with you. I’m just trying to point out that you’re wrong.” Houston Chronicle, 3/27/10, p.E11.

• We have a pride that does not allow us to think we cannot live on our own; we tend to believe we are the master of our universe.

• When we live life in such a way, we will not open ourselves up to listen to God or even consider that we are lost without God.

• We have free will, and we can choose to go through life that way, or we can humble ourselves before God and let Him guide our lives.

• This heart and attitude is prevalent yet today.

• If we will open our eyes and hearts to God, we would be amazed at what He can do.

• The sad part about life is that one day we will all bow down to God; those who have accepted Christ joyfully, those who allow power and pride to rule their lives will do so, realizing what they missed.

› Our Big Idea of the Message today is: God judges pride and power, and He humbles those who believe they are above Him.

• Let’s turn to Exodus 4:28-31 to begin.

Exodus 4:28–31 (CSB)

28 Moses told Aaron everything the LORD had sent him to say, and about all the signs he had commanded him to do.

29 Then Moses and Aaron went and assembled all the elders of the Israelites.

30 Aaron repeated everything the LORD had said to Moses and performed the signs before the people.

31 The people believed, and when they heard that the LORD had paid attention to them and that he had seen their misery, they knelt low and worshiped.

SERMON

I. Hope for the hopeless.

• Moses begins his new adventure by telling Aaron everything that the Lord sent him to say and all the signs God commanded him to do.

• Moses was resistant to God’s call, and I think we can all understand why.

• Moses was not seeking to be disobedient to God in the way Jonah was; Moses was just afraid; hence, the flow of excuses as to why God made a mistake in choosing Moses.

• From the exchange between God and Moses, we can surmise that God understands our fears.

• We will see the same type of fear from Gideon later in the Old Testament.

• Ultimately Moses is open to listening to God as well as being obedient because Moses knew HE was not God; Moses was not stuffed with pride.

• I wonder how Aaron felt when Moses shared the news with him and revealed the part Aaron would play?

• WOW! THANK YOU MOSES, FOR PUTTING ME IN THE CROSSHAIRS!

• Who knows, maybe he embraced the challenge.

• We see no resistance from Aaron.

• Verse 30 tells us that Aaron repeated everything that the Lord had said to Moses and performed the signs before the people.

• What was the people’s response?

• God’s people bowed down and worshipped when they heard that God “was concerned about them and had seen their misery” (Exodus 4:31).

• Later in the message, we will see a marked difference between how the Israelites received Moses, Aaron, and God’s message and how Pharoah deals with the same.

• Why were the people so different in their response to what Pharoah will do?

• They both will hear the same basic message and will see the same signs.