Yahweh remembers His afflicted people

Today we're reading from Exodus 2, 23 to 3, 15.

In terms of context, God's people are enslaved in Egypt.

All their baby boys have been thrown to the Nile,

and any hope in Moses has gone as he has fled to Midian after killing an Egyptian.

During those 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.

God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.

God saw the people of Israel, and God knew.

Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian,

and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness,

and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.

And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire,

out in the midst of a bush.

He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed.

And Moses said, I will turn aside to see this great sight.

Why? The bush is not burned.

When the Lord saw that he turned aside to see,

God called to him out of the bush,

Moses, Moses!

And he said, Here I am.

Then he said, Do not come near.

Take your sandals off your feet,

for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.

And he said, I am the God of your father,

the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.

And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.

Then the Lord said,

I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt,

and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters.

I know their sufferings,

and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians,

and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land,

a land flowing with milk and honey,

to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites,

the Amorites, the Pezizites,

the Hivites, and the Jebusites.

And now, behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me,

and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppressed them.

Come, I will send you to Pharaoh,

that you may bring my people,

the children of Israel, out of Egypt.

But Moses said to God,

Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh

and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?

He said,

But I will be with you,

and this shall be the sign for you that I have sent you.

When you have brought the people out of Egypt,

you shall serve God on this mountain.

Then Moses said to God,

If I come to the people of Israel and say to them,

The God of your fathers has sent me to you.

And then they ask me,

What is his name?

What shall I say to them?

God said to Moses,

I am who I am.

And he said,

Say this to the people of Israel.

I am has sent you.

God also said to Moses,

Say this to the people of Israel.

The Lord,

the God of your fathers,

the God of Abraham,

the God of Isaac,

and the God of Jacob

has sent me to you.

This is my name forever,

and thus I am to be remembered

throughout all generations.

Well, good morning, everyone.

Will you pray with me as we come to God's word?

Father,

I pray that you would capture each of our hearts,

that we would be invited by your word,

and believe that our deepest need is to know you,

the God who is there.

So I pray that you would be speaking through your word now.

I pray that whatever would distract us,

I pray that you would remove that,

and help us sit under your word this morning.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Well,

do you think of God as simply the ruler of all things,

or do you know him personally?

Do you know him by name?

Do you see salvation as kind of like a barcode ticket

in your Google wallet

that you just got in your pocket,

ready for when you've reached the pearly gates?

Or do you see yourself as saved from the power of sin

to enslave you,

to obey what sin tells you?

Do you see yourself as saved from the penalty of God's judgment?

Is the lamb's blood critical to your salvation?

Is the lamb's blood, that substitute's blood,

define your identity?

Do you struggle with why the Lord,

if you're one of his people,

why would the Lord lead you into what feels like a wilderness,

into really difficult trials?

Why would he do that?

Do you understand grace

as not having to fuss about obedience and disobedience?

Or do you have the opposite problem,

that you don't think you're worthy of grace until you obey?

Do you see salvation only in terms of from,

from slavery, from death?

Or do you see the goal of salvation?

Do you understand what salvation is for?

It's for a heavenly calling,

to be God's treasured possession,

to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.

Do you see the for of salvation,

the blazing glory of Yahweh,

making a way to dwell among his people?

As we come to the book of Exodus,

let's just consider a really big picture structure of the book

to consider some of the massive things

we're going to be dwelling in for the next two months.

The first part of the story, redemption, salvation.

What is it?

What does it mean?

Then we've got the law as a response to salvation,

and then we've got the goal of all this,

is God tabernacling with his people.

I know I've covered a lot of ground there,

and I apologise for just so many thoughts,

but Exodus is just huge.

It is huge.

And I hope you're excited.

I hope we have a sense of treading on holy ground

as we come to dwell in this book for two months.

We're going to be flying through Exodus

over these next nine weeks.

Can I just suggest, can I urge,

that why don't you use your personal devotions,

use family devotions,

let's just sit in this powerful book,

because I don't have time to cover all the details.

Well, I'm hoping that wet your appetite to some extent.

But as we get into the book,

there's a massive unsettling question as we open Exodus.

It's a question that we can feel keenly today

as we look at our own lives,

as we look at the state of the church,

not just our church,

but also more broadly the state of the church and the world.

And it's what has become of God's promises.

Where are you, God, if you promised all these things?

Earlier this year,

I think this is the Holy Spirit's planning,

not the elders,

but we finished at Genesis 15.

Maybe we should have finished Genesis,

but Genesis 15,

where the Lord makes an unconditional promise to Abraham.

If you remember that,

his promise arises from God's free decision.

Abraham doesn't merit it.

He's not bargaining with God to make it happen.

It's God himself walking between those torn animals.

Do you remember that picture?

Abraham doesn't walk through.

God alone walks through.

And he's saying,

I'm taking responsibility of my side of the covenant

and your side of the covenant, Abraham.

If you don't fulfill it or I don't fulfill it,

may I become like these animals.

Unconditional promise.

He's promised Abraham to be a great nation.

And as we open the book,

chapter 1, verse 7,

we hear that the people of Israel were fruitful

and increased greatly.

They multiplied and grew exceedingly strong.

So that the land was filled.

It was swarming with them.

But they're hardly a nation.

They're slaves of the most powerful nation

in the world of that time.

The new king,

who's forgotten that Joseph saved Egypt

and Joseph made Egypt rich,

the new king is pathologically nervous

about all these Hebrew fighting men.

He could have made a treaty with them,

as was common in ancient times.

He could have made them a vassal state

that gave them protections,

but also they had obligations.

He could have done that, but no.

He has a government-sponsored policy of persecution.

He makes their work hard,

and he's hoping that weakens them.

They just keep multiplying.

It doesn't work.

And so he orders the midwives to kill all the boys.

You can let the girls live.

Kill the boys.

When that doesn't work,

he makes it legal and commanding Egyptian people

for infanticide to throw the boys into the Nile River.

I don't know if you want to pause and imagine that.

You probably don't.

We don't have enough vomit bags.

We're not on an airplane here.

This is a disgusting scenario, isn't it?

Where's your covenant promises, God?

Where's the land flowing with milk and honey?

They're powerless in a foreign land.

Where's the blessing?

Where's the thriving?

Where's the cursing of those who curse Abraham?

How is all the world going to be blessed

through these chosen people

if they themselves seem cursed?

Where's your promises?

Well, we're not told all the reasons,

but in Genesis 15,

when he's making that unconditional promise,

he does give his people a clear word.

Genesis 15, 13,

Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners

in a land that is not theirs

and will be servants there

and they will be afflicted for 400 years.

But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve

and afterward they shall come out with great possessions.

Now, I don't think Scripture actually answers like 400 years.

I'm not sure.

I've got thoughts.

You can talk to me later.

But I think the main thing here is there's a clear word.

Whatever chaos is going on,

400 years of pretty bad chaos

in the church,

in our lives,

it might seem out of control,

but the Lord is Lord of history.

He keeps his word.

He knows the beginning from the end.

There's an anchor there.

And I think as we open the book of Exodus,

we also see in the early chapters

God's hidden activity.

With Pharaoh's schemes of burdening the Egyptians,

what happens?

They keep multiplying.

We see God's hidden activity.

I think we see God's hidden activity with the midwives.

Most likely they're Hebrew midwives,

given their names.

In the face of the most powerful man on earth,

this is the guy who's ordered the killing of the boys,

they know that he could execute them on the spot.

They're giving an account for the fact

that they've disobeyed his orders.

And they've got the audacity to say,

because the Hebrew women are vigorous

and give birth before the midwife comes to them.

Okay?

And yet God protects them.

I think that's amazing that

they live.

He protects them.

More than that, we're told,

he blesses them with families.

It's likely that this Pharaoh in history is,

I don't know how to pronounce this,

but Pharaoh Thutmose III,

but Scripture never gives this Pharaoh a name.

But we have these Hebrew women,

we have their names.

They're honoured for all history.

We see his hidden activity

in blessing these faithful women.

And I suspect Exodus is setting up a divine principle

that we see throughout Scripture,

that God works his power and he works his plans

through what is weak in the eyes of the world.

I think we see this in the women and in Moses.

Pharaoh isn't afraid of the women.

Let the girls live.

He's afraid of the fighting men.

But in these early chapters,

the Lord seems to be working through the women

who had no social power at that time.

It's Moses' mother who hides Moses in the first place,

risking her own life,

then seems to scheme to,

what do we do?

Puts her in the place where Pharaoh's daughter comes along.

It's Pharaoh's daughter who gives permission

to be raised by a Hebrew nurse

who just happens to be his mother.

It's a lovely touch there.

And who knows what values and identity

she instilled, his mum instilled in him.

He's raising him.

God is working through what Pharaoh saw as weak

to bring down Pharaoh's courts.

We're later told that when the Lord gets the victory in the end,

it's going to be the women who ask their neighbours

for gold and silver and going to plunder the Egyptians.

It's not the fighting men.

And I think we see this principle

of the Lord working through

what the world counts as weak

in Moses as well.

He's given every Egyptian privilege

and education.

He's in the prime of manhood

in these early chapters,

coming up to 40 years old.

I've got to say that now

because I'm approaching 40.

He's in the prime of his life.

But how the Lord would use him

is not how Moses

or we would expect him

to use him.

You probably know the story well.

He sees his brother being wronged

and it's his strength,

Moses' strength,

to strike the Egyptian,

avenging

and delivering the oppressed.

Now the Hebrews could have kept this quiet.

They should have been

excited.

This guy who's grown up in the courts

is fighting on our behalf.

What's God going to do through him?

But it's his own people

who reject him.

And Pharaoh hears the rumours

and Moses has to run away.

All his position and power and strength

in the prime of life,

it vanishes in a moment.

He's a fugitive

in a foreign land.

And I think the picture we have of him,

he's a shadow

of the man he was.

He's a failure.

He's rejected.

He's afraid.

He settles.

He names his child

after being a foreigner.

He just settles

in his lot.

And he gets old.

He's 80.

He's 80 now.

He's powerless

before Pharaoh.

So what's become

a God's covenant promise as well?

Whatever the chaos,

he gives a clear word

that he is Lord of history.

We shouldn't doubt the fact

that he's always at work.

It might be very hidden.

And he loves,

I take great comfort in this,

he loves to use

what is weak

in the eyes of the world

to work his power

and his plan.

His foolishness

is wiser than man's wisdom

and his weakness

is stronger than man's strength.

We might not like

God's pace of things,

but we shouldn't doubt

that he keeps his promises.

Well, I wonder what

in your life is,

or in the church

or in the world,

what's making you

ask that question?

What's become

of your promises, God?

Perhaps it's something

you've used to pray for

and you've just lost confidence

to pray anymore.

Perhaps it's a person

who you put confidence in

and they ever let you down

or the situation

just seems a lost cause.

I want to be clear

what I'm not saying.

I'm not saying

we should go looking

for God's hidden activity.

I think we can read

God's providence.

If we try and do that,

we can,

in precise ways,

we can get it terribly wrong.

I'm not saying

from the early chapters

of Exodus

that that's a blueprint

for us to be looking

for hints

of God's hidden work.

I think there's plenty

that we can see

and be thankful for.

An example

of misreading

God's providence

is that there's

a tragic example

with a great giant

of a man

in church history,

George Whitefield.

If you've heard his name,

he was used by God

in the Great Awakening.

He had a boy

and he named him

John after John the Baptist

because he had

this strong impression

that John would be

a great preacher

like him

of this beautiful gospel,

publicly baptising him

and telling people

about this word

from God

that he's had

and his boy dies

in infancy.

What's become

of God's promises?

What George Whitefield

later convinced

he needed,

what you and I need

and what Israel needed

is to go deeper

in knowing Yahweh,

who he has revealed

himself to be.

Don't go looking

for the hidden messages.

look at who he has

revealed himself

to be

at the burning bush

because whatever doubts

we have,

they are decisively resolved

in the book of Exodus.

He's not hidden anymore.

He's in your face,

resolving any doubts

we've got.

We need to know Yahweh.

So,

if you're in your Bibles,

we'll be saying

in chapter 3.

When people talk

about God,

I think God is like this.

I think he's

a forgiving,

tolerant,

compassionate

God,

or I think God

is like that,

or I think he's

stern,

I think he calls it

whatever you think.

People talk like that,

but we give the weather

more respect

than that.

Like,

I can wish

that it's going to be

22 degrees

and sunny,

maybe a few clouds

the rest of the week.

I can wish

that overnight

it's cold enough,

the heat isn't

keeping me awake

at night.

I can wish

that all I want.

Who cares?

The weather's there.

I've got to deal with it.

God is there.

Let's give him

at least the respect

of we give weather.

The God

who's really there

is speaking

and he uses fire

to help Moses

and to help us

understand

who he is,

his name.

Now fire,

we've all been close

to a fire

that's going out.

Why is it going out?

I'm stating the obvious here.

Because the fuel's burnt up

that it's depending on.

Or I was reading about

a product

you can use in housing

to defend yourself

against bushfires

that's made out of straw.

Straw.

That would just burn up, right?

No, because it's compressed

and there's no oxygen.

So the fire just goes out

once you remove the flame.

The point is obvious.

Fire is dependent

on fuel and oxygen

and ignition.

If you don't have those,

there's no fire.

Not this fire.

The bush isn't burning.

It's self-sufficient.

Listen.

Verse 14.

God said to Moses,

I am

who I am.

This isn't his name yet

but his name is built

on these words.

It's Hebrew.

The verb is just to be

so it's very difficult

to translate.

How do you translate that?

It's probably along the lines of this.

It's being itself has sent you.

Tell Israel that.

Being.

I am who I am.

Moses, you're dealing with absolute just being here.

Now, here's a few things I think this means,

and I doubt it fully captures it.

I am never had a beginning.

He can't go out of being.

He's utterly independent.

All other beings, including the breath I'm using now,

is totally dependent on I am.

If he's not dependent, he's utterly free.

He doesn't need anything outside of him.

There's no constraints on him.

I am is constant in his character.

He's not becoming.

He's not developing.

He's not progressing.

He's the same yesterday, today, and forever.

His character is stable.

I think it means I am is the absolute standard of truth

and goodness and beauty.

If he is ultimate reality,

he is the ultimate standard of what is beautiful

and what is good and what is true.

All this means that he is more worthy of our interests

and our attention and our admiration and our enjoyment

than all other beings and realities put together.

I don't know how you feel about this kind of God.

You can't control this kind of God.

It's a bit humbling, isn't it?

Whatever ego I've got,

there it goes, in the face of this God.

Everything is a gift from this kind of God.

It's also incredibly liberating

because it means I'm not the one holding my life together.

I'm not the one holding this church together.

I'm not the one holding the world together.

I'm not keeping it spinning.

It's really liberating as well.

Apparently, Martin Luther wrote to his worrying, anxious friend

in a letter to Philip Melanchthon,

let Philip cease to rule the world

because I am.

I am runs the world.

What does Pharaoh look like in comparison to him?

All his authority.

Well, good luck, Pharaoh.

If I am comes down to intervene.

I think Israel's afflictions

and their utter helplessness

and their dashed hopes

resonates with a lot of people's testimony

of meeting the true God.

It's often when we're at the end of our resources,

it's at the end of ourselves,

it's at the end of our confidence in people

or society or government.

That's when we meet the real God.

And the God who is real and personal

reveals himself to us.

He's personal.

We hear that the people are not just groaning

under their affliction.

A new Pharaoh comes into play.

Maybe they hoped the regime of slavery would end

with a new Pharaoh, but it keeps going.

And so they're moaning and groaning

under the affliction.

And that's just natural, isn't it?

But at the end of chapter 2,

they do something more than just groan,

which all people do that.

They pray.

They cry out.

They look upward.

Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God

and God heard their groaning.

God remembered his covenant with Abraham,

with Isaac and with Jacob.

God saw the people of Israel and God knew.

He's personal.

He knew.

It's a funny way of talking, isn't it?

I think that's saying much more than he knew

the facts of the situation.

Because in Genesis, Old Testament,

often knowing is intimate involvement.

Like Adam knew his wife, Eve.

So I'm not saying it's sexual here.

Much more than physical intimacy.

The Lord is intimately involved.

He comes down and gets involved.

He sees.

He hears.

And him remembering his covenant

is not saying anything about his forgetfulness.

It's like we saw with Noah in the flood.

At the height of the flood,

we hear that God remembered his covenant

and that's when God acts to take the flood away.

God remembering his covenant means time to act.

What prompts God to act?

It's the prayers.

It's the prayers of his people.

I have no idea how that works.

God has given a clear word.

But the time of fulfillment of that promise

is responding to God's people praying.

I wish I believed that more.

And we see it again and again through Scripture.

In the exile, Daniel prays

and they return from exile.

At the time of the birth of the Christ,

who's praying?

Simeon and Anna at the temple.

Whatever we think of God's pace

in acting and fulfilling his promise,

prayer is effectual.

The Egyptians wouldn't have seen it straight away.

But it's effectual.

Yahweh knows.

He sees.

He hears.

He remembers.

He's personal.

He remembers his covenant.

Verse 15.

Being itself sent you.

Tell them that, Moses.

Verse 15.

There's more to my name.

God also said to Moses,

Say this to the people of Israel.

Yahweh.

The God of your fathers.

The God of Abraham.

The God of Isaac.

And the God of Jacob.

Has sent me to you.

This is my name forever.

And thus I am to be remembered

throughout all generations.

Just in case you haven't heard this before,

capital L-O-R-D

is always the personal name of God

when you're reading the Old Testament.

It's over 6,800 times.

He wants to be known by name.

When we sing hallelujah,

we're not just going praise some divine title.

We're praising his name.

Yahweh.

Hallelujah.

We're praising his name.

I don't usually call Emma wife.

Unless I'm trying to be playful.

I call her by a name.

He wants to be known by name.

And he's a covenant-keeping God.

His name represents all he is.

And at the heart of who he is,

inseparable to who he is,

is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

He always acts on his covenant promises.

I think another way of saying it is,

I work with the most unpromising material

to bring about my promises.

Abraham, who is a coward.

Now he changes, God changes him.

But he's also a coward.

Dysfunctional Isaac.

He's a dysfunctional father.

You've got Jacob, who's a schemer and a con man.

Now these guys all change through God's grace.

But now, and we're going to see this more next week,

we've got failure feeling,

rejected, doubting Moses.

I work to keep my promises

through pretty ordinary material.

He keeps his covenant.

We don't see this in these verses,

but I want to mention it now,

given it's the start of our time in Exodus.

We should understand his name

as tied with the whole book of Exodus.

That he is Redeemer.

That he is the covenant Lord.

That he provides the blood of the lamb.

When we get to the Passover lamb,

his name is all through that passage.

That his purpose is to dwell with his people

in the tabernacle.

His name is tied to the events of Exodus.

And his ultimate goal

is that the whole world will know

that God is Yahweh.

We hear this when he's speaking about Pharaoh 9.16.

For this purpose I raised you up, Pharaoh,

to show you my power

so that my name

may be proclaimed in all the earth.

In chapter 14, verse 4,

I will get glory over Pharaoh

and all his hosts

and the Egyptians shall know

I am Yahweh.

That's the purpose of this book.

It's the purpose of history.

It's the purpose of the universe.

It's the purpose of your life.

Whether you know it or not.

Is that the world would know

that I would know

that God is Yahweh.

The God of the Exodus.

The final thing I want to draw our attention to

in this passage is

in verses 4 to 6.

His goal is personal encounter

and yet he's unapproachably holy.

Yahweh attracts Moses' attention

with the fire

and calls him, Moses.

He calls him.

He wants encounter.

But then Moses comes

and he goes,

whoa, don't come near.

And Moses hides his face

afraid of God.

We're going to see it again

when we get to Mount Sinai.

God comes down

and the people hear his voice

and they're terrified.

They can't come near.

We're going to see it

when Moses asks

to see God's glory

in chapter 34

and God says,

I can't.

I'll kill you.

I can't show you all I am.

He wants personal encounter

and yet,

like fire

is life-giving,

it destroys.

The big question

isn't why isn't

the bush consumed?

The big question

is why isn't

Moses consumed

if we understand

his holiness?

We see a tension here

that we're created

to know this God.

We're made to know him.

Remember the Garden of Eden.

We're made to

not be afraid

of this God

and yet,

because we've turned away,

his presence is traumatic.

It's fatal.

As one person put it,

the human condition is

we can't live with God

and we can't live without him.

But Yahweh will make a way.

We don't make a way.

He makes a way.

The book is going to end

in the tabernacle,

his glory dwelling,

coming and filling.

At the centre

of his people's camp

is the tabernacle

and God

makes a way.

He wants to be known

and yet he's

unapproachably holy

but he'll make a way.

Well,

after 400 years

of slavery,

whatever Israel's

groans and doubts,

what's become

of God's promises,

they were

thrillingly put to rest

at Exodus.

Yahweh decisively

makes himself known.

He saves them

from Egypt

and he brings them

to himself.

But we're also

going to see

something else

in Exodus

that Israel

had a deeper

enslavement,

worse than Pharaoh.

Yahweh intimately

knew his people.

He remembers

his promise

but his people

keep turning away.

They don't want

to intimately know him.

They don't

remember his promises,

his clear word.

It's that

enslavement

of the heart

that keeps

turning

from the God

who is there

and wants to be known

and has done

everything for us

to be known.

I wonder

if you can

resonate with that.

We need

a greater Exodus.

Exodus 2.0.

When we're

asking the question

what's become

of God's promises

we come

to a man

named Jesus

who says

in John 8.58

truly,

truly,

I say to you

before Abraham

I am.

We should read

the gospel

why Jesus

came

as

the second

Exodus.

A greater

revelation

of Yahweh

absolute

being

who

knows us,

who hears

our prayers,

who always

acts according

to his covenant

promises

so that the

whole world

will know

him.

to know

Yahweh

in Jesus

is

thrilling

or it should

be thrilling.

It should

fill us

with hope

and it

should call

us to a

heavenly

calling

to make

him known.

So whatever,

can I just

end by saying

whatever

is causing

us to doubt

God's promises,

promises,

the main

thing we

need is to

know

Yahweh

and to

know our

calling to

make him

known in

the situation

you're in.

Will you pray

with me?

Let's pray.

Father,

as we

walk through

Exodus,

these next

few months,

I pray

that you

would give

us deeper

insight into

who you

are and

your great

acts of

salvation.

I pray

that it

might help

us grasp

more deeply

who Jesus

is and

all you've

done and

the great

riches of

the inheritance

you've bought

for us through

Jesus and the

great calling

to be your

people and

to make you

known in

whatever

situation

we're in.

Lord,

please do

this for

us.

In Jesus'

name.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.