Crying Out To God

CRYING OUT TO GOD

Our text, this morning is found in the first two chapters of Exodus. Exodus picks up where Genesis left off as it tells the historical account of how the children of Israel went from the –

· Time of Joseph to the time of Moses

· Time of Blessing to the time of Bondage.

The nation of Israel was once comfortable living in Egypt.

They grew in great numbers and strength, but Egypt was only their temporary home. Then came the persecution of the Pharoah of Egypt.

This Pharoah wanted to starve out these people of God by oppressing them physically, emotionally and spiritually. They faced extinction.

Text: Exodus 1:13 & 14; 2:23 thru 25

Recently we have been talking about certain moments in our life when we have to make a deliberate/conscious decision to stand for the Lord.

At all cost! No matter what else is going on in our lives, we have to do the will of God in our lives.

These are our MOMENTS OF DECISION

These moments will –

1. Reveal to us whether, or not, we are committed to the cause of Christ.

2. Define what we are made of.

Just like the children of Israel, you may find yourself suddenly enduring an overwhelming hardship in your life.

What do you do?

This is usually the time that many people rely upon their emotions to ease their pains of disappointment and discouragement. I’ve seen it and you’ve seen it in folks like us.

We all have our own unique ways of displaying our emotion. Some of us throw things, bang on things, say things we shouldn’t, stomp out the door, slam the door, whatever. None of these fits of tantrum do anything to solve our problems, but we do them.

Whatever we do immediately after we first get upset will define for us (and everyone else) what we are made of. This is what I will call a “Defining Moment” in our life.

The children of Israel had their DEFINING MOMENT in verse 23.

Their first response was to “groan”. Their bondage in Egypt caused them to “groan”. What you go through may cause you to groan, but that won’t make your problem go away.

Sometimes that “groan” will –

1. Define who and what you are.

2. Tell you (and everyone else) that you are no different than anybody else around you.

3. Let you describe your emotions.

As we will find out, to “groan” can be good for us. Or maybe it isn’t.

Some people have a groan that is only a miserable whine of woes.

They moan and groan because they are so miserable with their life.

Sometimes while we “groan”, God is waiting for us to settle down with our emotions. We all need to understand that God wants us to do something about what causes us to “groan”.

Remember - God has a specific outcome planned for your life.

Significant results are about to take place as soon as you get a grip on the emotion of your pity party.

God knows that you have different kinds of emotions in your life.

After all, He is the One Who gave you your emotions. He knows best for you.

Human emotion is perfectly normal as long as those emotions are used for God’s Glory. Sound too technical?

My Bible tells me that everything in my life is given to me to glorify Him. Everything? Even my emotions are given to me for His purpose and glory.

When things go wrong in our lives, I believe God is already on the scene. He is expecting us to respond appropriately with our emotions to what He has planned for us.

I believe that God knows better than we do about the agony we have to endure sometimes. But our “groans” can sometimes sound very selfish.

We “groan” and tell ourselves:

1. it’s just another day of misery

2. this is not what I expected to happen – (why not…we are the ones that get ourselves into the messes we find ourselves in)

3. this is not fair…I didn’t deserve this to happen to me.

All of the trials and tribulations the children of Israel ever experienced was brought on by themselves because of their foolishness and failure to put God first. It wasn’t that God was always wanting to punish Israel. They just made bad choices.

And their mistakes and shortcomings brought them pain and misery. So what did they do? They “groaned”.

Whenever we “groan” we often will respond with other emotions that just make matters worse for us.

Such as:

1. frustration

2. anxiety

3. resentment

4. retaliation

We find out that these emotions won’t solve our problems, and they won’t make us any closer to the Lord.