The Greatest Story

Exodus contains the greatest story in the history of all the world.

The greatest story in the history of all the world.

And maybe you think of some of the stories along the way when we open up to the book of Exodus.

Maybe you think of the plagues and Moses' epic throwdown with Pharaoh.

Maybe you think of Moses' improbable journey from nearly murdered a child to the actual prince of Egypt.

Maybe you saw the movie.

Maybe you think of God's delivery of the Ten Commandments, followed by Moses coming down the mountain to the horrific scene of the Israelites worshiping the golden calf where he throws the tablets down and they shatter into a million pieces.

Maybe there are other parts of the story that stick out in your mind.

You know, if the book of Exodus were a movie, I would have just given you the quick scenes that show up in the trailer.

Pop, pop, pop, hit the major parts of it.

But the reality is anybody can make a movie with cool action scenes.

It's the depth of a plot line that actually makes the movie amazing.

Just a couple of years ago, America was struck by Top Gun Maverick.

Not because the fighter pilots were so amazing flying through, but because of the story that was tied into the other from 20 years ago, and the action scenes with the plot line were so amazing.

Earlier this year, Indiana was struck by this amazing sight that grown men all over the state of Indiana were looking at a TV, weeping while Fernando Mendoza laid out.

And everyone's looking around like, bro, are you okay?

It's not just because they won a game, it's the plot line, the story of the losingest program in the history of programs, finally getting their act together and doing something.

The depth, the plot line is what actually draws you in, in addition to the action scenes.

And Exodus gives us more of that than any other story in all the world.

It'll reach back into Genesis and all the way through the New Testament, even leading to Revelation, where we're singing the Song of Moses.

And so this morning I aim to begin weaving these stories together and helping you to see not just the action on the pages of Exodus, but the depth of the plot line that reaches back and reaches forward.

It's a little bit different kind of sermon this morning where I'm introducing the book of Exodus and getting into chapter one.

So what I want to do is give a little bit longer intro, that's kind of an overview of Exodus, and it'll probably take 10 or 15 minutes to do that, and then dive into chapter one and start to pull out the foundation of the story that's being revealed.

If you want the book of Exodus in a single phrase, you would say this: it is the God who reveals himself.

The God who reveals himself.

First, revealing himself to Israel, and then revealing himself through Israel to the nations.

If you're trying to think of the outline of the book, there's there's three major movements.

At first, we find ourselves in Egypt.

That's chapters 1 through 13.

And then the Israelites are out of Egypt and they're on their way to Mount Sinai.

That's maybe chapters 14 through 19.

And then chapters 20 through 40 take place at Mount Sinai.

It's a grand story, and so you want to start to know the characters and the geography and the places and where they are.

And as you read through Exodus, perhaps that will help you.

You may benefit from having a scripture journal.

Some of you have picked those up already.

We have more in the back.

I would encourage you to grab one of those and read the book of Exodus in big chunks over the next month or so.

See how many times you can read through the whole book, even by the end of August, and make observations of repeated things along the way.

There's maybe three major themes of Exodus I would draw your attention to this morning.

And the first one is simply God.

God is the main character in the book of Exodus.

His aim is to reveal himself, and we find a real God who is really involved in human history.

And your response to the real God determines your eternal destiny.

Now, this is not just me saying that Exodus is the God who reveals himself.

In fact, if you look at the very pages of Exodus, you'll see this over and over in Exodus chapter 3, the famous burning bush scene.

Exodus 3 · chapter mention

Moses asks God, says, Who should I say that you are?

He says, Tell them that I am.

I'm revealing my name.

And Pharaoh's first question to Moses, when Moses goes and says, Let these people go, let my people go, that we may worship in the wilderness.

Pharaoh's first question, yes, but who is the Lord?

It's a question that in the 21st century people ask just like they did in that century.

But who is the Lord?

And why should I obey his voice?

said Pharaoh, and so say Americans.

If your copy of Exodus is open, I'd invite you to turn over to chapter 6 and verse 2.

Here God makes it plain, his aim is to reveal himself.

Exodus 6, 2.

God spoke to Moses and said to him, I am the Lord.

I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as God Almighty, but my name, or but by my name I did not make myself known to them.

So when he says, Lord, capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D, there we are referring to God's personal, relational, covenant-making name.

Sometimes you heard that referred to as Yahweh.

He says, I had previously made myself known as God Almighty.

If you're familiar with Hebrew names of God, that's Elohim.

Elohim is the God of Genesis chapter 1, who made everything out of nothing.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

Everything you can see and everything you don't.

But the God of Genesis 2, who reaches down into the dust of the earth and forms the man and breathes into his nostrils the breath of life, the intimate, personal, relational God, is Yahweh.

And the name the Lord, Yahweh, shows up 342 times in the book of Exodus.

God intends for you to know his relational, personal name.

He is not merely God Almighty, who is over it all, creating it all.

He is Yahweh entering into your story, revealing himself, engaging and caring about this world that he has created and the people who are in it.

God is the main character in the book of Exodus.

In fact, in Exodus 7.5, you're very close to it if you were just looking at chapter 6.

He says, right before the plagues, why am I going to do all these plagues?

Exodus 7.5, that the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, that you will know who God is.

And you read through the plagues, and you'll see that phrase or variations of it, and that they shall know that I am the Lord.

It starts with the Egyptians, and then it says that the Israelites will know.

And then a little later it says that all the nations would know that I am the Lord.

And a little later it says that every generation would know that I am the Lord.

God intends to reveal exactly who he is in the book of Exodus.

And I think in part that's because in Egypt, God seemed forgotten and irrelevant.

Which, if you think about the ancient civilization of Egypt, it does bear a striking resemblance to 21st century America.

At that point, Egypt would have been the most prosperous nation in the world, with the greatest technology in the world, with an unlimited source of free labor.

Which kind of sounds like America.

The most prosperous nation in the world with the best technology in the world, and a newfound unlimited source of free labor known as AI.

So in that world, God seemed forgotten and irrelevant.

And many 21st century suburbanites would say that God has been forgotten and maybe irrelevant as well.

And he's revealing himself to say, you should know who I am.

You must know who I am.

Your eternal destiny depends upon your response to who I am.

It was A.

W.

Tozer, the great theologian, that said, the most important thing about you is what comes into your mind when you think about God.

Let that sink in for a moment.

The most important thing about you is what comes into your mind when you think about God.

When you wake up and think of the Maker of the universe, is he real?

Is he actually involved in your life this morning and this afternoon?

Is he actually trustworthy?

Does he actually require your obedience?

Is he worthy of falling down in face-down worship?

As you're stunned by his glory and his majesty.

Exodus is about the God who reveals himself, and the most important thing about us is what comes into our mind when we think of God.

So that is the first major theme.

The second major theme of Exodus is the gospel.

Now, here I want to invite you to take out your bulletin.

Hope you got one.

And when you look at that front, what you will see is the shadow of the cross across the image of the Exodus there.

Because the shadow of the cross permeates all of Exodus.

In fact, it is difficult to overstate the significance that Exodus has in creating this moral imagination to see the gospel.

Throughout the Old Testament, there are more than two dozen references to the Red Sea crossing as a picture of salvation.

And there are so many echoes and illusions and minor callbacks that you couldn't even begin to count them.

Let me give you one just really fun one that's out of Exodus 1 this morning.

So the Pharaoh, his crest was a snake.

You might think of it similar to the seal of the president of the United States is going to have the bald eagle.

You see that eagle and you just know it's presidential.

Well, in Egypt, you see the snake and you know that's of Pharaoh.

Well, in Genesis chapter 3, the fall of Adam and Eve, you find the serpent deceiving the woman, bringing death for everyone, with the promise of the gospel that one day the seed of the woman would overtake the seed of the serpent and would bring blessing and life to all.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

And in Exodus chapter 1, do you know what we then find a great reversal where the women deceive the serpent, Pharaoh, bringing life to all as a foreshadow of what the Son of God would do.

Exodus 1 · chapter mention

Is that not beautiful?

Minor illusions like that, you'll see all over the place.

I cannot wait to show you more of them.

But more explicitly than that, the New Testament invites us to read Exodus in a Christ-centered way, perhaps more than it invites us to read any other Old Testament book in this way.

Matthew chapter 2.

Matthew 2 · chapter mention

Matthew is writing about Jesus.

He says, Out of Egypt I called my son.

And he's quoting from the book of Hosea, which is referring to the Exodus, and he's basically saying this the Exodus in the Old Testament, Jesus in some way is bringing a new Exodus out of a different kind of slavery to a different kind of freedom.

In Luke chapter 9, we read of the transfiguration.

Luke 9 · chapter mention

Jesus is on the mountain.

Moses and Elijah have come down, and they're sitting around a campfire talking about whatever Jesus and Moses and Elijah talk about.

And it says they spoke of his departure, of Jesus' departure, his death.

But the Greek word for departure is Exodus.

They spoke of Jesus, Exodus.

In some way, his death brings a different kind of freedom, a different kind of deliverance, a better freedom, and a better deliverance than even what happened in the book of Exodus.

In the Gospel of John, chapter 1, verse 29, John is there.

John 1:29

He looks at Jesus and says, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

It's the very first time in all the Bible the phrase Lamb of God has been put together, saying there was a Passover lamb.

And if you took shelter under his blood, you were delivered from the death to come.

And John says, Ah, but the true and the better Passover lamb is here now.

Take shelter under the blood, my friends.

And then as the Lord's Supper, the new Passover meal is instituted.

You can imagine the disciples around the table with Jesus at the last supper, which was the first supper of sorts.

And they're looking around and they have all the elements, except there's no Passover lamb on the table to eat.

And it's as if Jesus is saying, I am the Passover lamb, and you will eat of my body and drink of my blood.

There's no Passover lamb on the table, because I'm the Passover lamb sitting at the table.

And so every time we observe the Lord's Supper, we are remembering our Exodus out of sin and death and into freedom in Christ.

And so if you think about what an Israelite testimony would have been in the wilderness wandering some thousands of years ago, you will notice a striking resemblance to what a 21st century Christian would say about their very own testimony.

It would go something like this: they would say, Well, we were in a foreign land, and we were under bondage and slavery.

We could never free ourselves, and we certainly were going to die.

Yet, by the grace of God, we took shelter under the blood of the Lamb.

And we were saved, we were delivered because of the blood of the Lamb.

And our mediator, Moses, he led us out, and we crossed over the waters.

On dry land, we went free.

We were on our way to the promised land now.

We're not to the promised land yet, but we're on our way there.

And God has given us his law to guide us while we're on the way.

And he's given us his temple because we still need forgiveness and grace, which comes to them through the tabernacle.

And his presence will be with us all the way until we finally make it to our destination.

You see, Exodus is inviting us to read this in a Christ-centered way and to tell the story of the gospel in a beautiful way.

We just finished the book of Romans a few months ago.

They gave us the theology of the gospel, and now Exodus gives us the story of the gospel.

Third major theme for the book of Exodus, freedom.

Of course, some of you immediately think of William Wallace screaming for freedom.

Others of you are historians, might remember the 250th anniversary and think back to Patrick Henry, who said, Give me liberty or give me death.

And yet the narrative of freedom, the heart cry for freedom, is one of the most central cries of the modern man.

And anything that would push back on our freedom is utterly despised.

You have to look no further than the movie Frozen.

What does the song say?

It's time to see what I can do to test the limits and break through.

No right, no wrong, no rules for me.

I'm free.

Any rules restrict my freedom.

They must be thrown away, and I'm free when I reject all rules, is what our culture is telling us.

Other parts of our culture tell us that children restrict freedom.

They keep me from the life I want to have, the travel I want to pursue, the lifestyle I want to maintain.

Therefore, kids get in the way.

There are other parts of our culture who tell us that old age restricts our freedom, or that we become a burden to others, and by our old age, by our neediness, we restrict others' freedom, and we say, I don't want to be a burden to you.

And yet Galatians 6, 2 says it's one of our great gifts as the body of Christ is to bear one another's burdens in love.

So what does it mean to be truly free?

You see, what ends up happening is when we pursue freedom apart from God's design, we end up enslaved.

You think of all the ways that we want to fight against aging with skin creams and hair color products and all of those things.

Now, hear me, I'm not saying that skin cream or hair color is a sinful thing.

That's not the point of this.

But the more you invest there, the more enslaved you become to maintaining a certain appearance.

And what I think will provide freedom ends up enslaving.

And so when we pursue freedom, apart from God's good design, we end up enslaved all the time.

You might think of it as a vehicle driving down a mountain.

Do the brakes on your vehicle restrict your speed?

Absolutely.

But do they actually give you freedom to drive down the mountain?

Absolutely.

And so freedom is not the absence of restriction, but submission to the right restrictions.

And God says, here is my law that's been given to you.

It guides you along the way.

I want you to be free, not only free from sin, bondage, hell, death, and Satan, but free to serve me.

And so we find the Israelites in a state of complete not freedom in Egypt.

They are delivered from slavery, freed to follow God, and then they grumble.

They say, oh no, it was better back there.

They had better food.

We want to go back to the way it was before.

And do we not do the same thing as Christians at times?

Saying it was better back when.

Christian, what this means about the nature of freedom is that you've been freed by Christ, if you've trusted in him, to love generously within the church.

To give sacrificially within the church.

You've been freed from sin to gather regularly.

What a gift this is that we get to gather.

It's not a bother to gather on a Sunday.

It's not something that competes with other activities, and if church can slot in, then we'll be there.

It's a gift of worship that we get to gather in.

So Exodus will tell us who God is and what the gospel is and what it means to be free.

Those are the major narratives, the major storylines, themes coming through.

But in Exodus 1, that Reed read a few minutes ago, we're digging in to the particulars.

We're laying the foundation for this story.

And as we immerse ourselves in that story, we're gonna see just a couple of things unfolding.

We're gonna see that God is working an epic plan, and that God rarely works how we anticipate, and that he always remembers his people.

Right out of the gate, Exodus reminds us God is working an epic plan.

Exodus is the second book of the Bible.

The first five are a set that are sometimes called the Pentateuch.

Big word right there.

Our geometry majors know the word pentagon means a five-sided thing.

Shape?

Is that it?

Five-sided shape.

We'll go with that.

Pentateuch, set of five scrolls, set of five books.

So this plan that God is working doesn't start in Exodus.

It starts in Genesis, the first book.

You go back to the beginning, and God has promised to provide a son that will bring a blessing.

The blessing will be built through the nation that will be given a land of promise where they can live forever.

And yet in Genesis, this family is nearly extinct.

They're almost ready to die in the course of a famine.

And one guy, Joseph, gets sent down to Egypt.

And after he goes to Egypt, in a miraculous turn of events, God provides for 70 more to come with him from his family.

And so when we pick up in Exodus chapter one and we're reading about this genealogy, it's like a TV show that says, previously on insert favorite TV show, and it helps you pick up with what's going.

That's where Exodus chapter one picks up.

They started with 70.

By the time of their departure, many scholars estimate between three and four million.

Million Israelites are residing in Egypt.

No wonder Pharaoh said they were too many and too mighty.

And what were the first words in Genesis 1 that God spoke to his newly formed creation?

It says, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.

And what do we find them doing in Exodus 1?

Well, look at Exodus 1.7.

Overlaid with what was commanded in Genesis 1.

Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth is Genesis 1, Exodus 1.7.

But the people of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly.

They multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them.

They're doing exactly what they were supposed to do in the place that God has placed them.

And you think back to where Exodus is written, you have the Israelites, they're out of Egypt, they're wandering through the wilderness.

And Moses is writing down the book of Exodus as they wander through the wilderness and they see various countries and cities and civilizations, and they all have their own pagan deities around, demanding worship, making promises.

Here's the good life, if you'll bow down before us.

And Moses is writing this to say, don't you see the story that God has been working and is working?

And his promises are good, his purposes can be trusted, his presence is real, he is with you even when you don't see it.

God is working an epic plan.

He is worthy of your worship.

And he's more secure and more glorious than any of the pseudo-gods that the Israelites were seeing around them.

And boy, in America, do we have plenty of pseudo-gods claiming offers of the good life with promises that just don't pan out.

What are the pseudo-gods of America?

Well, there's the pseudo-god of Wall Street offering the hope of financial security and freedom.

There's the pseudo-god of Easy Street.

Saying, if you can just hit that easy button, find a way to simplify life, chill out, cut the stressors back a little bit, then you'll truly be happy.

There's the false God of authenticity.

If you would just be more true to yourself, then you'd be in great shape.

And all of your problems stem from not being true to yourself.

There's the false God of weekend football that's getting ready to come into full swing.

Demands your time, your talent, and your treasure.

Every Sunday, none of us would think twice, or some of us would not think twice, about watching three Saturday college games followed by three Sunday games, and that wasn't enough, so we had to get Monday and Thursday in there.

But we just don't quite have time to make it to Bible study on Sunday night.

The pseudo-God says, Give me your time, give me your treasure, and I will make you happy.

And Moses is writing in the book of Exodus to the Israelites and likewise to us, saying, There is a God working an epic plan, whose promises are good, his purposes are secure, his presence is real, and he always, always accomplishes what he's after.

He can be trusted to work his plan.

However, he rarely works at we anticipate.

And in Exodus 1, we find the most unexpected of all circumstances.

If you are a note taker, I want you to write this down because this is what the Israelites are needing to learn and to remember.

It's this I must bring what I do not know about the world into what I do know about God.

I must bring what I do not know about the world into what I do know about God.

Favor looks at it at the Israelites and says, hey, we got a problem here.

There's three and a half million of these guys.

They're gonna rise up, they're gonna take us over.

So we're gonna put all sorts of oppression and affliction on them to make their life hard and difficult.

And it had to have been so bewildering for them.

They had to bring what they did not know about their world into what they did know about God.

Now look at Exodus 1, starting in verse 11.

I'm not gonna read every single phrase, but you see a description where the author wants you to understand how bitterly difficult and painful life was.

Verse 11.

They were afflicted with heavy burdens.

A little later, they were oppressed.

A little while later, they were ruthlessly made to work as slaves.

A little while later, they made their lives bitter with hard service.

Now it's easy for us to read that and glance over.

I want to pause there for just a second and recognize.

Here we have in those few words a grainy picture of an image that you do not want to see in 4K.

There is real, horrific pain contained in those words, but not graphically depicted in those words.

And let us recall that this was 400 years.

This is entire generations born into oppression, living and dying, with no hope that they can see.

Wondering, how do I bring what I do not know about my world into what I do know about my God?

Listen, I struggle to have perspective on this when I have like two weeks of this.

They had generation upon generation upon generation.

And as if that's not enough, Pharaoh then moves for state-sponsored genocide, where Pharaoh mobilizes their own people to go kill the male children, so that the gift of conception now feels like a curse to them.

On a daily basis, you're seeing fathers beaten in the front yard, mothers vulnerable, sons murdered, families asking, who will provide for our daughters and protect them?

And everybody looking around saying, Where are you, God?

You made all those promises in Genesis.

Don't see them in my life today.

Have you been there?

This tends to be the common experience of God's people at one point in time or another.

Experience without explanation.

Adversity without a purpose.

Hostility without a protection is what we see.

And yet, Paul in Acts chapter 14 says that it's through many hardships that we enter the kingdom.

Acts 14 · chapter mention

Jesus in John 16 says, In this world you will have tribulation, yet take heart, for I have overcome the world.

And let's just be honest, those verses they look a little better on the plaques in Hobby Lobby than they do when you bury your own child.

Or when God chooses not to give you a kid.

Or when the darkness will not lift for weeks, months, years, decades.

When the anxiety is so thick and so intense that it chokes the life out.

God rarely works how we anticipate.

And one of the gifts he gives us in the darkness is the gift of lament.

Lament is a prayer and pain that leads to trust.

More than one-third of the psalms are psalms of lament.

And if I can just be honest with you as a pastor, I see this as a major gap in our evangelical world.

We don't talk about lament enough.

We don't sing songs of lament enough.

Of course we want the victory.

Of course we want the mountaintop.

But lots of life isn't there.

That's part of the reason we're singing the song we introduced last week, sang again this week, Dear Refuge of My Weary Soul.

Like we're going to do something about it at Parkside.

We can't change what all America's doing, but we can do something about it here, and we can reclaim lament.

I want you to think about the lyrics to that song for a second.

Hast thou not bid me seek thy face?

And shall I seek in vain?

Anybody been there where it feels like you're seeking God's face in vain?

I've been there.

Israelites have been there.

If you haven't been there, you will be sometime.

The author goes on.

And can the ear of sovereign grace be deaf when I complain?

Because it sure sounds like God is deaf to my complaints and he's not hearing me.

And yet the author takes what he doesn't know about his world into what he does know about God and says, No, still the ear of sovereign grace attends the mourner's prayer.

He's still listening.

Oh, may I ever find access to breathe my sorrows there?

Thy mercy seat is open still.

Here, let my soul retreat with humble hope, attend thy will and wait beneath thy feet.

Brothers and sisters, you may be in a deep period of lament this morning.

And I hope that the language of lament you can receive as God's gift, not to make everything better right now, but to realize that the ear of sovereign grace attends the mourner's prayer, and there is access before his throne for you to bring your trials, your troubles, your tribulations.

He does not need the cleaned up Sunday school version of prayers.

He wants the real, authentic you coming with all of your pain, all of your problems, and he can handle all that lies in the depth of your soul.

You probably don't want to pour everything out to a first grader because they can't handle it yet.

But the God of all the universe can, and he knows, and he wants you to come to him saying, Here's who I am, and here's where I'm at.

This is how I learn to bring what I do not know about the world into what I do know about God, and I claim his promises, forces me to recognize that my perspective is simply more limited than I think.

I don't have the whole picture.

And so I cling to what I do know.

And you have a book like Exodus showing you a 400-year trajectory so that if you are living your life in year 275 of 400, you may not see it before the grave.

But you have the secure promise of a good God, whose promises are sure, his purposes are good, and his presence is real right now in your life, even if you don't feel it.

God rarely works how we anticipate.

And I would just say if you're in the midst of that season right now and you're struggling to believe it's real, the cross itself is proof that on the darkest of all days in human history, God's victory was being accomplished in a greater way than you ever could have imagined.

And at the resurrection, that check cleared and proved that he has won the victory, and it reminds you with confidence that God never wastes the tears of his saints.

Never.

Your tears are not wasted, brother.

Your tears are not wasted, sister.

They're not.

They're accomplishing something.

And at the end of Exodus 1, it's as if the Lord God gives breadcrumbs of hope for those that are hurting the most.

How does he do that?

He tells us of two midwives named Shifra and Pua.

He tells us he always remembers his people, even when they feel insignificant and unseen.

They were supposed to be Pharaoh's secret agents to carry out the murderous plot, to kill all the boys, and yet somehow the boys keep living.

So he pulls them in.

He subpoenas them and says, hey, what's the deal here?

And this is one of the greatest wines in the book of Exodus.

They look at him like, I don't know, boss, these Hebrew chicks, like they go beast mode.

Not our fault.

What are we supposed to do about this?

Well, I think what's it say?

They're more vigorous.

I laugh every time I read that.

Did they lie to Pharaoh?

Some would ask.

I mean, maybe, maybe not.

We don't exactly know.

Maybe they got the call that a baby was being born, and they walked kind of lazily and took the long road and stopped in at Dunkin' Donuts.

So that by the time they got there, the baby was already born.

Maybe they put something out like on Facebook.

However, that works back in the day.

Like, hey, if you're about to have a kid, just give us a few days and then put the call in.

So that when we get there, we can say, it's too late, the baby's been born.

I don't know what they did.

The text tells us, though, they chose to live in fear of God instead of fear of Pharaoh.

They risked their life because they feared God.

These are normal women, low-key women, under the radar women, not looking significant women.

And let's just notice for a second, those of us that struggle with fear, their fear of Pharaoh was completely rational.

Sometimes we have fears in our life that are irrational, and we didn't name that.

But there are other times we're afraid of things, and it's completely rational, and it was them.

And they didn't deny the legitimacy of that fear.

They just said, there's a bigger God and a true God and a living God, and I'm gonna choose to live in fear of him instead of living in light of this other fear here.

Boy, what a lesson that is for us in confronting our fears.

And what does God do as they choose to live in fear of him instead of fear of man?

The most ironic of twists, verse 21, it says, Because they feared God, God gave them a family.

It says, You honor my name, I'll extend your family name.

And more than that, I will cause your names to be remembered.

Like we know names are super significant in the Bible, right?

The Pharaoh, that's his title, like president.

What was the Pharaoh's name?

Nobody freaking knows.

But whose names do we know?

Those who chose to fear God.

The weak, the insignificant, the not prominent, shifra, puah, honored, remembered forever.

Or as Paul would say in 1 Corinthians 1, God uses the foolish to shame the wise, he uses the weak to shame the strong, he uses the lowly and the despised to defy the high and the lifted up.

Listen to me, Park said, God is more concerned with your availability than your ability.

He's more interested in your hands being open than your hands being strong.

God is in the business of drawing straight lines with crooked sticks like you and me.

And for all eternity, these two women are remembered and honored because they chose to live in the fear of God.

They believed his power and promises and presence were sure here they are as a living example of bringing what they do not know about their world into what they do know about their God.

And I just I wonder if you would reflectively ask this morning.

If I, like Shifra and Pua, really believed that all God's power was moving all God's promises to be sure and steady and rock solid in my life, how would that change my life today and tomorrow?

What anxieties would still if I really believed that?

What apathy for the kingdom would die if I really believed that?

What sin would I forsake and walk away from because I know it cannot keep its promises like the God of the universe, the one true living God, Yahweh, who reveals himself and intervenes into my life could?

And part of me wonders in Exodus chapter one, how God lifts Shifra and Pua, two women.

Can you imagine their late-night conversations together, both scared out of their wits?

What are we gonna do tomorrow?

What happens when Mrs.

Jones gives us that phone call about the baby we're anticipating?

And they come together and they pray together.

And they ask the Lord for strength, that they would take a terrifying step of faith, walking in obedience.

It's no coincidence that there are two of them listed and not one.

Because we are meant to walk in community, and living in the fear of the Lord is a difficult thing to do and is certainly amplified in difficulty when we try to walk in isolation.

Perhaps the Lord is impressing upon your heart a difficult step of faith, living in fear of the Lord that he wants you to take this week, but you're recognizing it needs to be in community as well.

I need to stop somebody on the way out this morning and ask for their prayer.

We need to lock arms like Shifra and Pua and cling to the promises of God.

Here in the early parts of Exodus, we find the main character, God, working a greater plan than we could ever imagine.

He's working in ways that puzzle our minds, in ways that defy our comprehension.

And yet in the midst, we see his kind hand of remembrance leaving breadcrumbs.

He always remembers his people.

They will be blessed forevermore.

They will live in his presence, who choose to live in the fear of God rather than the fear of man.

Lord Jesus, we need your help this morning.

Would you help us, Lord, to live in the fear of you and not in the fear of man?

Would you help us to trust that your power and promises and presence is real?

Would you move us by your grace and strengthen us by your mercy to bring what we do not know about our world into what we do know about you, our God, and trust to the good plan of Yahweh, who loves us and cares for us.

Amen.