Exodus
“The story of God’s presence”
Part 4
“Finding strength in our discouragement”
I believe I can safely say
Like last week we all offer Excuses from time to time in our lives
Especially in our Christian walk
We all also face discouragement in our lives
I do not believe our Christian walk is immune from this either
In life
I am sure you as I have had been discouraged
With a job
A relationship
A situation
Maybe even a new horse
In our Christian walk
Especially in our early Christian walk
Discouragement can creep in on quiet little caterpillar feet
Or storm in like a raging lion
As of you who have accepted the Lord as your savior and come to me with the decision
Know that I always tell you
Your life is apt to get worse before it gets better
Old Slick is not happy with your new decision or your new life
And he wants to discourage you
To keep you from your new purpose and your new calling
Maybe you have been saved for a while
And
You are really trying to do what you know you are supposed to do
But
Your witness has been ineffective
No one has responded
People just think you are weird
You are not alone
I can tell you from my perspective and the perspective of any preacher- teacher of God’s word
Discouragement is a common theme
But we are not alone
Once again God shows us in his word
In the book Of Exodus
That Discouragement is a reality of life
Moses and his brother Aaron were no exceptions
They too suffered from discouragement
Last week we looked at Moses excuses
And how we make often excuses about why we are not obedient
We saw what God thought about his excuses
And how he feels about ours as well
He thinks they all stink
But we also saw that after all the excuses
Moses finally went to do what God wanted him to do
He went back to Egypt
He began living the life that God had planned for him
He began the long road of fulfilling his purpose
Remember I told you about the signs that God gave Moses so that the Hebrews would believe that he was truly sent by God
Their God
The God of Abraham
The God of Isaac
The God
Of Jacob
Yahweh
The great I AM
Moses showed these signs to his people
He showed them the staff that turned into a snake
He showed them his diseased hand
He showed them the Nile water turning to blood
He told them who God was “told them his name
And he gave them God’s message
And
They believed him
You see
God had prepared their hearts and they accepted Moses’ message
So now was the time for Moses and Aaron to take the next step
In Exodus chapter 5 and 6 we are going to see an unfolding of God’s plan
Please open your bibles to Exodus Chapter 4
Verses 29-31
29 Then Moses and Aaron returned to Egypt and called all the elders of Israel together. 30 Aaron told them everything the LORD had told Moses, and Moses performed the miraculous signs as they watched. 31 Then the people of Israel were convinced that the LORD had sent Moses and Aaron. When they heard that the LORD was concerned about them and had seen their misery, they bowed down and worshiped.
Now look at chapter 5
Verse 1
“After this presentation to Israel’s leaders, Moses and Aaron went and spoke to Pharaoh. They told him, “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: Let my people go so they may hold a festival in my honor in the wilderness.”
Moses had gone as God instructed
His people/ the Hebrews had listened and accepted his words
Now he was supposed to Go to Pharaoh and ask for a small thing
Just 3 days to go and worship God
And offer sacrifices to God
We know that
But God had open the hearts of The Hebrews
But
We see in scripture that He had actually hardened the hearts of the Egyptians
Notice Moses was not asking for freedom here, he was not saying turn us loose
He was just asking for a long weekend
But Pharaoh wasn’t having any
Verse 2
2 “Is that so?” retorted Pharaoh. “And who is the LORD? Why should I listen to him and let Israel go? I don’t know the LORD, and I will not let Israel go.”
Pharaoh was a bit full of himself
He had been told he was a “god”
Treated like a god
He believed he was a “god”
And he did not like being told what to do – none !!
Not by this man Moses
Not by his brother Aaron
Not by a God that he did not know and could not see
So again
Moses asks again
Verse 3
3 But Aaron and Moses persisted. “The God of the Hebrews has met with us,” they declared. “So let us take a three-day journey into the wilderness so we can offer sacrifices to the LORD our God. If we don’t, he will kill us with a plague or with the sword.”
Moses is saying
Hey King/ Pharaoh
I’ve met with my God
And he really wants this to happen
If it doesn’t
It ain’t going to be good for any of us
But Pharaoh wasn’t listening
He was irritated
And he simply wanted these guys to go away
He wanted life his way
And he did not want anyone one
Or anything
Especially this God of the Hebrews
Getting in his way, or stopping his plans
Verse 4
4 Pharaoh replied, “Moses and Aaron, why are you distracting the people from their tasks? Get back to work! 5 Look, there are many of your people in the land, and you are stopping them from their work.”
Moses and Aaron stepped up to the plate
They did what God asked
And Pharaoh did not listen
We have the luxury of knowing the rest of the story
And so we know that this was part of the plan
But put yourself in Moses shoes for just a moment
He had reluctantly agreed to go
God had told him he would prepare the way
Give him the right words
But now
Pharaoh wasn’t listening
This is where we first begin to see Moses’ discouragement
To make things worse
Not only did he not listen
Not only did he not do what God told him to do
Pharaoh increased the oppression and the persecution of the people
I guess that Moses had forgotten the part about the Egyptians hardened hearts
Had forgotten about God saying they Pharaoh would not do what he wanted
He had forgotten about how God told Moses he would have to raise his mighty hand against the Pharaoh and the Egyptians
So he was discouraged
A bit put out maybe
Having a little pity party
But then Pharaoh makes it worse
Verses 10-11
10 So the slave drivers and foremen went out and told the people: “This is what Pharaoh says: I will not provide any more straw for you. 11 Go and get it yourselves. Find it wherever you can. But you must produce just as many bricks as before!”
Verses 13-14
13 Meanwhile, the Egyptian slave drivers continued to push hard. “Meet your daily quota of bricks, just as you did when we provided you with straw!” they demanded. 14 Then they whipped the Israelite foremen they had put in charge of the work crews. “Why haven’t you met your quotas either yesterday or today?” they demanded.
Pharaoh made it harder- way harder
We know God’s plan of rescue was marching on
But the Hebrews could not see it
Because their lives were worse than ever
Verses 15-19
15 So the Israelite foremen went to Pharaoh and pleaded with him. “Please don’t treat your servants like this,” they begged. 16 “We are given no straw, but the slave drivers still demand, ‘Make bricks!’ We are being beaten, but it isn’t our fault! Your own people are to blame!”
17 But Pharaoh shouted, “You’re just lazy! Lazy! That’s why you’re saying, ‘Let us go and offer sacrifices to the LORD.’ 18 Now get back to work! No straw will be given to you, but you must still produce the full quota of bricks.”
19 The Israelite foremen could see that they were in serious trouble when they were told, “You must not reduce the number of bricks you make each day.”
This was worse than before—way worse
Now the Hebrew were not just oppressed
They were being abused
And there was no way they could get done what the salve drivers were requiring of them
So the slave drivers took it out on the Hebrew foremen
They in turn
Looked for someone to blame
And that blame fell on Moses
God’s reluctant prophet
Now
God’s discouraged prophet
Verses 20-21
20 As they left Pharaoh’s court, they confronted Moses and Aaron, who were waiting outside for them. 21 The foremen said to them, “May the LORD judge and punish you for making us stink before Pharaoh and his officials. You have put a sword into their hands, an excuse to kill us!”
They said “You have made us stink Moses “
I think what they wanted to say
Is “you stink Moses”
We had it bad
But now thanks to you
It is even worse
We believed you
We followed your lead
And look what happened
Moses You Stink
So
Now Moses is even more discouraged than before
Pharaoh does not want to hear him
The Egyptians don’t want to hear him
The Elders don’t want to hear him
The people that God said would believe him No longer did and no longer wanted to hear what he had to say
You stink Moses, they said
And Moses as you can imagine became even more discouraged
So he takes his complaint to God, tells God about his discouragement
Verses 22-23
22 Then Moses went back to the LORD and protested, “Why have you brought all this trouble on your own people, Lord? Why did you send me? 23 Ever since I came to Pharaoh as your spokesman, he has been even more brutal to your people. And you have done nothing to rescue them!”
God
God
You said go
I Went
I did not want to
But I did
I was happy living in Midian
I liked being a shepherd
It was a quiet peaceful life
And you made me come here
And look at what has happened
The Egyptians hate me
My people say I stink
You said you were sending me to rescue them
And now because of me
No
No God
Because of You
It is even worse than before
And you are not doing anything about it
Why God?
Why did this happen, why did you send me? Why don’t you do something?
I think discouragement might be an understatement about how Moses was feeling about now
But
God did not answer Moses Question why?
Instead He tells Moses to tell the people about Him and about his promises
I believe Moses heard his own words
And in those words found comfort in his discouragement
And prayerfully we will also find comfort in God’s word
You have heard this before
You know I am not a health, wealth and prosperity preacher
And you also know how I feel about those false prophets
So we don’t need to go down that road again this morning
I love to preach on the love of God because it is the truth
And I must preach on the judgment of God because it is the truth
But I want to show you how the love covers the judgment
But I never want to mislead you into believing this Christianity thing is going to be easy
Listen, this is important
Obedience to God’s call does not mean everything will be easy.
It may mean hardship, suffering, and persecution.
There may even be times you like Moses say---
“Why God”
“Why, Me?”
“Why now?”
When Moses met with Pharaoh and had no success, he asked, “O Lord, why have you caused trouble for this people?
Moses asks God
“Why have you brought all this trouble on your own people, Lord?
Why did you send me?
You see
When Moses followed God, things actually seemed to get worse!
Have you ever suffered hardship even though you were obeying God?
Have some of your friends or even family tempted you to follow their sinful lifestyles?
Have they labeled you a “Jesus freak “or a “geek” or just a “weirdo”
Or make fun of you?
Avoid you? When you didn’t
It is discouraging
And it is a tough place to be.
It can be even harder being single and trying to live a God honoring life
Obeying Jesus in your singleness is difficult, with all the pressures of the world pressing on you
But
Remember
There are no gray areas in God’s word
And trying to live in obedience and often failing, even if just in your mind
Can lead to discouragement
Have you ever worked somewhere and known about someone breaking a company policy or even the law?
And then stood on your values
And stood on God’s word
And told somebody
And then felt the change in your coworkers or bosses attitude towards you
They might have labeled you a troublemaker, maybe got transfer, demoted or even lost your job.
How about confessing your sins as the bible tells us too
You go and tell someone, you think you can trust
In turns out you couldn’t
And People hear about it
And then the wheels fall off your life, because you did the right thing
This can be very discouraging
Preachers and teachers are not immune
I know of many pastors who followed God’s call to pastor a church but have met great opposition
Some pastors have preached the Bible faithfully but have seen little response and no growth.
Pastoring a hostile or complacent or stagnate church
And asking
“Why did you me here God?”
“What am I doing here?”
Discouragement
Obeying God is not a pain-free life.
It does not mean you will be popular.
It does not mean you will be immune from awful problems in a fallen world, like cancer or injuries or other health problems
Contrary to a growing popular belief
Sickness is not cause by sin
We know the consequences of sin can cause us health problem
But the sin itself is not the cause.
Obeying does not mean you will not encounter serious spiritual warfare and times of despair.
You can expect problems.
To should expect problems
So kind of like I say about getting bucked off horses
It is When not if
“We will have moments of discouragement?”
So
The question this morning is this:
“How can we deal with deep discouragement in our spiritual life?
When we try hard to live out God’s Word and things do not work out the way we expect,
Where do we go for help?
Where do we go for strength?
Where do we go to stop this crazy train and make sense of all this?
The answer is
God’s word
We can find the answers to the problems of our lives in God’s word
But
Today we actually find the answers we seek
In God’s response to Moses in Exodus 6
It is my prayer this morning that God will speak to us through the words of Moses to the Hebrews
Please open back up to Exodus
Chapter 6:1-9
Then the LORD told Moses, “Now you will see what I will do to Pharaoh. When he feels the force of my strong hand, he will let the people go. In fact, he will force them to leave his land!”
2 And God said to Moses, “I am Yahweh—‘the LORD.’[a] 3 I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as El-Shaddai—‘God Almighty’[b]—but I did not reveal my name, Yahweh, to them. 4 And I reaffirmed my covenant with them. Under its terms, I promised to give them the land of Canaan, where they were living as foreigners. 5 You can be sure that I have heard the groans of the people of Israel, who are now slaves to the Egyptians. And I am well aware of my covenant with them.
6 “Therefore, say to the people of Israel: ‘I am the LORD. I will free you from your oppression and will rescue you from your slavery in Egypt. I will redeem you with a powerful arm and great acts of judgment. 7 I will claim you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the LORD your God who has freed you from your oppression in Egypt. 8 I will bring you into the land I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I will give it to you as your very own possession. I am the LORD!’”
In these verses we see God’s promises to the people
His promise to Moses
His promise to us
And a plan for overcoming discouragement in our Christian life
God never answered the question “Why?”
He reminded Moses that He is in control.
He simply reminded Moses that His plan would not be stopped
Many believers believe that God is in control on an intellectual level
But have trouble putting that fact to use in their lives
And often they get discouraged because they have forgotten God’s promises or have not completely embraced them
We must know and remember
That God is working in all things for His people’s good.
He is always using circumstances to get us to where he wants us
God made a covenant with his people
And God kept His covenant to us through Jesus. Christ
Because of this, we can find peace, comfort and rest during life’s discouraging times.
We have a Savior who died, rose, ascended to the Father, and now intercedes for us.
He is forever faithful to His people.
In Exodus God shows Moses his presence and his promise
And He shows us his promise to us in these holy words written so long ago
In Exodus we find words from God to comfort us in our discouragement
The first of these words are
He is God and he is in control
Verse 6:2
And God said to Moses, “I am Yahweh—‘the LORD.’[a] 3 I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as El-Shaddai—‘God Almighty”
Jesus says In John 10:30
“ I and the Father are one”
Acts 4:12
“There is salvation in no one else! God has given no other name under heaven by which we must be saved.”
He is God and he is in control
God’s next word to us is
That he keeps his promises
Exodus 6:6a
And I reaffirmed my covenant with them. Under its terms, I promised to give them the land of Canaan, where they were living as foreigners.
John 11:26
Everyone who lives in me and believes in me will never ever die.
He hears us when we cry out
Verse 5
“You can be sure that I have heard the groans of the people of Israel, who are now slaves to the Egyptians. And I am well aware of my covenant with them.”
We have a loving God who hears our cries
Luke 8:22-24
22 One day Jesus said to his disciples, “Let’s cross to the other side of the lake.” So they got into a boat and started out. 23 As they sailed across, Jesus settled down for a nap. But soon a fierce storm came down on the lake. The boat was filling with water, and they were in real danger.
24 The disciples went and woke him up, shouting, “Master, Master, we’re going to drown!”
When Jesus woke up, he rebuked the wind and the raging waves. Suddenly the storm stopped and all was calm.
We serve a God who calms our discouragements by hearing our cries
Next
He frees us from slavery
Exodus 6:6a
6 “Therefore, say to the people of Israel: ‘I am the LORD. I will free you from your oppression and will rescue you from your slavery in Egypt. I will redeem you with a powerful arm and great acts of judgment.
He freed the Israelites by his grace, they could not buy their freedom, could not earn their freedom
He freed them by his Grace
And He frees us by his grace
Ephesians 2:8
8 God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God.
God saved Israel by his grace
He saves us by his grace
Next
He redeems us
Exodus 6:6b
“I will redeem you with a powerful arm and great acts of judgment.”
Redemption
A wonderful word and a wonderful concept
Redemption
Purchased
Made into something new
No longer salves but free to worship God as his child
Romans 6:6
“We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin.”
No longer what we used to be
No longer in bondage to our old lives and our old sins
God is the “Redeemer
So know that in your discouragement
Jesus, your protector, your champion, has intervened in your misery.
He has paid the price to relieve you from your greatest debt, from your most desperate situation.
He paid it with His own blood, with His own life.
So we could be his family
He claims us or adopts us
Exodus 6:7
“ I will claim you as my own people, and I will be your God.”
This verse shows us the family nature of our salvation.
God took Israel as His people.
Called them his children
Showed them his unmatchable love
He does this for us through Jesus
Galatians 4:4-7
4 But when the right time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, subject to the law. 5 God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children.[b] 6 And because we[c] are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, “Abba, Father.”[d] 7 Now you are no longer a slave but God’s own child.[e] And since you are his child, God has made you his heir.
To overcome our discouragements God
He shows us who he is
He shows us his promises and keeps his promises
In giving us freedom – God has released us from the bondage of our sin and our own lives
In redemption-------God has changed us into something new
By his grace
No longer slaves
But
Sons and daughters of the living God though his adoption of us
What a picture of what God did for Israel
What a picture of what He has done for us!
We were once in slavery
We were the pit of our sins
The pit of our discouragements
And are now safe in the arms of the Father, who loves us
But more than that
Psalm 40:2-3
He lifted me out of the pit of despair,
out of the mud and the mire.
He set my feet on solid ground
and steadied me as I walked along.
3 He has given me a new song to sing,
a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see what he has done and be amazed.
They will put their trust in the LORD.
If you are a child of the living God
Remember daily that you are no longer an outsider
You are family – a son or daughter of the living God!!
God has brought you out of a pit and placed you in His very own family
And given us an
Inheritance
Exodus 6:8
“I will bring you into the land I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I will give it to you as your very own possession. I am the LORD!’”
God was promising His people that they would possess a country. A land of their own
This promise was first mentioned to Abraham
Later, in the book of Joshua, we will see the people entering, conquering, and inhabiting the land.
These people had nothing.
They were slaves in Egypt.
But God is going to give them an inheritance. He is going to give them the Promised Land— a land flowing with Milk and Honey----all by His grace.
They did not earn it.
They couldn’t buy it.
We also have an inheritance waiting for us
We have hope in the new heavens and new earth.
1Peter 1:3-4
3 All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is by his great mercy that we have been born again, because God raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Now we live with great expectation, 4 and we have a priceless inheritance—an inheritance that is kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay.
Moses was discouraged because he felt that he was not accomplishing what God had asked him to do
The people went listening to him
They changed their attitudes about him
And God in these verses tells Moses
Just tell them Moses
Let me do the rest
It is not your job to save them
That’s my job
Just tell them and let me sort this out
Remind them who I am, Remind them about my promises
Tell them I can set them free; tell them they can be redeemed
Tell them they are no longer outsiders, but that they are my children
Tell them that they have a priceless inheritance waiting for them
Tell them that they are the objects of my love and of my mercy
And then rest in knowing all these things yourself
He tells us to Focus on our job and let God do his?
Pharaoh said , “Who is the Lord? And why should I listen to him?
Nest week we will see why he should have listened
But today , I need to ask
Why should you know the Lord and why should you listen?
I will go back to the verses I ended with last week
John 3:18
18 “There is no judgment against anyone who believes in him. But anyone who does not believe in him has already been judged for not believing in God’s one and only Son.
I John 5:12
" Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have God’s Son does not have life."
Close from the heart
Pray
