God's People Birthed: Moses, The Special Delivery

Hello and welcome to the Kalamazoo church of Christ podcast.

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There we go.

His name in the Hebrew language means to pull out.

It means to draw out.

His name was not given to him by his mother.

Think about that for a moment.

His name was given to him by Pharaoh's daughter.

His name is Moses, Moses today, kind of like Tim, I'm going to be bouncing around.

And so if you have three fingers, it would be good maybe to use all of them or to bookmark Exodus chapter 1 and 2, Acts chapter 7, and Hebrews chapter 11.

Exodus 1 · chapter mention Acts 7 · chapter mention Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

We'll actually begin reading a section out of Hebrews chapter 11 this morning.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

Beginning in verse number 24, we're going to do a lot of reading today.

We're going to let the word of God speak to us quite a bit here this morning.

So here we go.

Hebrews 11, starting in verse number 24.

By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh's daughter.

He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.

He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward.

By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the king's anger.

He persevered because he saw him who is invisible.

And by faith he kept the Passover and the application of blood so that the destroyer of the firstborn would not touch the firstborn of Israel.

By faith the people passed through the Red Sea on dry land.

But when the Egyptians tried to do this, they were drowned.

Do you see the emphasis and the amount of times that the word faith was used in this passage?

Well, it does come from Hebrews chapter 11, which is commonly known as kind of the hall of fame when it comes to faithful examples that we've had in our past.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

Our faithful ancestors.

What's striking to me in addition to that was not just the faith that Moses had, but if we back up there a verse in number 23, it says this.

By faith Moses's parents hid him for three months after he was born because they saw he was no ordinary child and they were not afraid of the king's edict.

By faith Moses's parents.

So see this ancestry of faith, this lineage of faith that we hear, I don't think there's any mistake in the way that Moses demonstrated his faith because it started even before he was born.

I heard a minister one time put it this way, the best time to start praying for your kids is before they are here.

And so I think that's wonderful advice.

I think that is great advice.

And then as the scriptures continue to go on and tell us a little bit about Moses's parents, it mentions that they noticed he was no ordinary child.

Now I know parents, I've been one, I've seen them constantly.

They're a little bit despicable when it comes to their kids, right?

They're so blinded.

They have on the rose colored glasses.

They think their kid is the best ever and they're going to tell you about it, right?

But I don't think that this was simply a matter of parental bias that we find here, that the scripture says that Moses's parents witnessed something in their child to the extent that they referred to him as being no ordinary child.

As we back up a little further in Hebrews chapter 11 and verse number 13, it says this, that all of these people were still living by faith when they died.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

There's that heritage again that we've referenced a couple of times.

They did not receive the things promised.

They only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth.

People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own.

If they had not been thinking of the country they had left, or if they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return.

Instead, they were longing for a better country, a heavenly one.

Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

Isn't that, it's just awesome.

All of these people that we're reading about, the promises of God, the things that God talked to them about, wanted them to be, a lot of the fruit of their labor, it did not come to fruition.

It did not come to bear fruit necessarily while they lived.

Sure there was fruit there then too, but a lot of them didn't see the extent of what happened during their own lifetime.

Church to me, that means patience.

You know, we need to be a lot less excited about the moment and a lot more excited about the trajectory, I think, in our lives, right?

As we back up further in the book of Hebrews chapter 11 into verse number 6, a powerful, powerful verse as they begin, as the writer of Hebrews then begins to follow, giving us great examples of faithful ancestry that we all share in.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

It says there, and without faith, it is impossible to please him, to please God, because whoever comes to him must believe that number one, he exists and that he is a rewarder of those who earnestly seek him.

Wow.

Great, great words to use as the foundation for our lesson here today.

I want to skip to our next slide here.

This is a quote by D.L. Moody.

Is it clear enough?

Is it just me?

All right.

I took off my glasses to read the Bible, right?

I actually thought about this before I got up.

I took off my hearing aids because every time I take off my glasses and try to put them on, my hearing aids fall out.

So I have this dilemma, do I want to see or do I want to hear?

That's basically what it comes down to.

So I can see much better right now.

I love the description that D.L. Moody gives of the three phases of Moses' life.

This is his quote, Moses spent 40 years thinking he was somebody, 40 years learning that he was a nobody, and 40 years discovering what God can do with a nobody.

That's awesome.

That really is awesome.

And you know, I wondered, I tried to kind of apply that to my own life.

Now, we have to shorten the range, at least I think we do.

I don't anticipate living 120 years on this earth.

So I divided it up into like these 25-year segments.

I look back at my life, and perhaps you could do the same with yours.

I think it's helpful.

The first 25 years we spend growing up, we spend going to, you know, elementary school and then junior high or middle school and then high school and then college and then perhaps even getting married within this time frame.

The second 25 years of our life, at least for me, it just, it seems like a blur, a real blur.

I spent 25, actually closer to 30 years of my life, raising my family.

And I had four kids.

We did our best to evenly space them out, and that kind of worked out.

But you know, that's a long, that's a long journey.

And it just seems like a whirlwind.

We're so caught up in just living day to day and putting food on the table and making sure there's money to pay the electric bill, all those kind of things.

Finally, here we are in the last 25 years of life, empty nesters.

Well, sort of.

We had kind of reverse form, and we have, you know, the mom coming back to live with us now, not the kids.

Oh, we've had that too.

We've done it all, man, all right?

We've lived a full life.

But it's also a time of great reflection.

You know, what have I done with my life?

And why did all of this happen?

And there's also great reflection on what remains undone.

What, what, what's left?

What do I need to accomplish?

I just wondered to myself today, you know, did Moses have similar thoughts or, or did this not really occur to him?

I have to believe that at least part of this did.

I need your help today, and I need your participation, because I want you to think.

I want you to dream with me here a little bit this morning.

If you lived during Moses' last 40 years of his life, and you were the senior editor with the Nile Publishing Group, assisting Moses in writing his memoirs, what would the title of his book be?

What would you suggest that the title of his book be?

I want you just to let that sink in for a little bit.

I want, I want a couple of responses.

Here's a couple maybe to, to get you started.

Mama Sent Me Up the River, perhaps as a subtitle without, without a paddle.

Maybe that would work.

My Life Among the Frogs, or insert your favorite plague that, you know, he, he had to live with.

How about you?

You have, you have a suggestion or two?

I made it, okay, all right.

That might not be too bad either.

All of these things could be true about Moses' life, and I'm sure that there's parts of his life that stick out to you more than others.

But today, I want to try to keep it as simple as possible.

We're going to stick with these three divisions.

The first 40 years, when he was thinking that he was somebody, we're going to talk about Moses being delivered.

The second 40 years of his life, which would fall in that description of the 40 years where he was learning that he was a nobody, I'm going to entitle that living in the desert or living in the wilderness.

And then finally, this last 40 years of Moses' life, we're going to talk about how God used this nobody to be somebody, actually to be a deliverer.

And so that's going to be the message today.

Moses, who was delivered, Moses living in the wilderness, and then finally, Moses becoming the deliverer.

So let's look at the first 40 years of his life.

Who's doing the slides anyway?

Nobody?

Okay.

Oh, you are.

Okay.

Yeah, go to the next one.

There we go.

Thought I was up the river without a paddle there for a minute.

Just like Moses.

So a little bit of a lengthy scripture reading here.

I'm going to go back to Exodus chapter one, beginning in verse number eight, and reading through the second chapter, verse number 10.

I'm sure you're familiar with the story, but it does me good to review these things.

I just love reading this story.

I hope that you'll appreciate hearing it again as well.

Exodus one, beginning of verse number eight, then came a new king to whom Jesus meant nothing or to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power in Egypt.

Look, he said to his people, the Israelites have become far too numerous for us.

Come, we must deal with them shrewdly, or they will become even more numerous, and if war breaks out, we'll join our enemies, fight against us, and leave the country.

So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Python and Ramesses as store cities for Pharaoh.

But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread.

So the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites and worked them ruthlessly.

They made their lives bitter with harsh labor in brick and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields.

In all their harsh labor, the Egyptians worked them ruthlessly.

The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose name was Shifra and Pua, when you are helping the Hebrew women during childbirth on the delivery stool, if you see that the baby is a boy, kill him.

But if it is a girl, let her live.

Crazy.

The midwives, however, feared God, praised God, and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do and let the boys live.

Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, why have you done this?

Why have you let the boys live?

The midwives answered Pharaoh, Hebrew women are not vigorous or not like Egyptian women.

They are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive.

Not only were these God-fearing midwives, they were pretty quick on their feet too, right?

I couldn't have dreamed that one up.

That was pretty good.

You Egyptian women, you're soft, soft.

But us Hebrew women, we're strong.

We're strong.

So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous.

And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own.

Then the Pharaoh gave this order to all his people.

Every Hebrew boy that is born, born you, you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live.

I wish I could really bring this down to us today.

I can't even imagine such an edict.

I can't imagine taking your daughter, all right, even though it says it was the boys that were affected here, and just throwing them into the river.

And how many of them?

These people were numerous.

I can't imagine the amount of babies.

What kind of a crazy psychopath is this Pharaoh?

How demented do you have to be to kill two-year-old boys?

Now, a man of the tribe of Levi married a Levite woman, and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son.

And when she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months.

But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch.

Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile.

His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him.

Then Pharaoh's daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the riverbank.

She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her female slave to get it.

She opened it and saw the baby.

He was crying, and she felt sorry for him.

This is one of the Hebrew babies, she said.

Then his sister, Moses's sister, asked Pharaoh's daughter, shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?

Yes, go, she answered.

So the girl went and got the baby's mother.

Pharaoh's daughter said to her, take this baby and nurse him for me.

I will pay you.

And the woman took the baby and nursed him.

When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh's daughter and he became her son.

She named him Moses, saying, I drew him out of the water.

Wow.

I mean, there's enough there to keep us busy for a long time when we really start digging into it, you know.

How did this plan?

First of all, how could a mother, how many of you mothers could actually take, you know, weave a basket of some sort, put your baby, your not even three-month-old baby, put it in an ark and put it in a river, okay?

And the Nile River, as I understand, has alligators, which I'm terrified of, okay?

I don't understand how this mother could bring herself to do such a thing.

And then the sister, approaching Pharaoh's daughter and making this suggestion, hey, I'll go find somebody to nurse, happened to be Moses' mother.

And then Moses' mother not being able to call her son who she had named him, but using the name that Pharaoh's daughter used to name her son.

In Sondra Van's handbook to the Bible, it says that Pharaoh's daughter was probably Pharaoh's child by a concubine, not a princess of blood royal.

Ramesses had about 60 daughters.

Busy guy.

She would have taken Moses back to the harem to be brought up with the others, learning to read and write the Egyptian hieroglyphic and cursive scripts, studying laws and gathering expertise in various skills and sports.

It was not unknown at the time for foreigners to be brought up in this manner and trained for responsible posts in the army, priesthood, or civil service.

And the Jewish historian Josephus tells us, tells a story, an account of where Moses actually led the Egyptian army into battle against the Moabites.

Interesting, interesting stuff.

A Hebrew acting like an Egyptian.

Let's turn over to the book of Acts, because there's plenty of Moses in the New Testament scriptures as well.

Acts chapter 7.

Acts 7 · chapter mention

Are you tired yet?

We got a little ways to go, okay?

Acts chapter 7, 20 through 22.

Acts 7 · chapter mention

At that time, Moses was born and he was no ordinary child.

For three months, he was cared for by his family.

When he was placed outside, Pharaoh's daughter took him and brought him up as her own son.

And Moses was educated in all of the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in speech and action.

This gives us a little insight to Moses's everyday life.

Verse number 20.

Again, it reemphasizes this description of Moses not being an ordinary child.

An alternate rendering of that translation said, he was fair in the sight of God.

Verse number 20 tells us that for three months, he was cared for by his mother and his family.

But after the three months, he was raised by Pharaoh's daughter as her son.

In verse number 22, it says that Moses was educated in all of the wisdom of the Egyptians.

The Egyptian government, the country of Egypt, was at that point in time, the strongest, most powerful nation on the earth.

Moses was afforded that type of an education.

In verse number 22, it says that Moses, and remember this segment, verse number 22 says he was powerful in speech and action.

This is what people were saying about him, not what Moses thought about himself.

We're going to learn later on.

There was a huge gap in between the two.

By all accounts, people, Moses lived a pristine life during his first 40 years.

He lived in the biggest house in town, probably the biggest house in the country, perhaps the biggest house in the world.

When he was hungry, he ate.

When he was thirsty, he ate or drank.

He got his bachelor's degree, then his master's, perhaps even his doctorate.

He wore the finest clothes and his credit limit, and his credit card didn't have a limit.

He had his choice of vehicles.

You see, there was the BMW, the Maserati, the Ferrari all sitting in his garage there.

No doubt he could have had his choice of Egyptian women who would conveniently overlook the fact that he was Hebrew.

Despite all of this, during Moses's first 40 years of life, there was something deep down inside of Moses that kept gnawing at him.

And this question kept coming up in his consciousness, who am I?

And the truth of the matter was, he knew.

He just not had come to grips with it.

He was indeed an Israelite.

He was a member of the Hebrew nation, but he was acting like an Egyptian.

And so Moses, from the time he was born, he was under a death curse, right?

He was delivered once from the river, but Moses is about to be delivered again in the country of Egypt.

Let's go back to the book of Exodus.

Exodus chapter two, beginning in verse number 11.

Exodus 2, 11.

One day after Moses had grown up, he went out to see where his own people were and watch them at their labor.

He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people, looking this way and that way and seeing no one.

He killed the Egyptian and hit him in the sand.

The next day when he was out and saw two Hebrews fighting, he asked the one in the wrong, why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew?

The man answered, who made you ruler and judge over us?

Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?

Then Moses was afraid and thought, what I did must have become known, or perhaps who I am, who I really am, must have become known.

And so Moses is going to be delivered again from this country of Egypt, from one of the highest positions in the whole nation of Egypt to be delivered once again, but to where and to who and to what?

Those are the questions that would be revealed to him during his second season of life.

There we go.

In Exodus two, as we continue in 15, when Moses heard of this, he tried to kill Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian where he sat down by a well.

Now priest of Midian had seven daughters and they came to draw water and fill the troughs to water their father's flocks.

Some shepherds came along and drove them away, but Moses got up and came to their rescue and watered their flock using some of those military skills that he had learned back in the country of Egypt.

And when the girls returned to Ruel, their father, he asked them, why are you returning so early today?

They answered, an Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds.

He even drew water for us and watered the flock.

And where is he?

Ruel asked, why did you leave him?

Invite him here to have something to eat.

Well, Moses agreed to stay with the man who gave his daughter Zipporah to him in marriage.

Zipporah gave birth to a son and Moses named him Gershom saying, I had become a foreigner in a foreign land.

So back in the day, you see things move rather quickly.

Moses is invited to eat dinner with Ruel and all these daughters.

And Ruel being the great host that he was said, can I get you some more coffee?

How about a little dessert?

How about a wife?

I have plenty of daughters right here, okay?

I don't know the time limit involved or how much time that Moses had actually spent with Ruel and all of these daughters of his, but this is exactly what happened.

And he married Zipporah, the account says, and then they had this son named Gershom.

Now I find it interesting.

Did you catch what Gershom's name actually means?

It means I have become a foreigner in a foreign land.

That's not Gershom talking.

That's not Gershom's experience.

That is Moses's experience.

Moses is thinking of himself almost vicariously through his son now.

I am a foreigner in a foreign land.

Again, the question is haunting Moses.

Who am I?

Who am I?

And it's one of the most important, most powerful questions that we can ask ourselves.

Who am I and what am I doing?

And for 40 years, Moses wrestled with this question.

I wonder how many nights under the stars that Moses would just look up, sit there for a moment and think.

Think about those days in Egypt.

Then I remember, I remember I had it all.

I had everything, whatever I needed.

I wore the finest clothes and look at me now.

I wonder how many times he laid awake during those 40 years.

That's a long time, my friends.

I wonder how many nights Moses stared off into space and thought to himself, what am I doing?

I must have to have my head examined because I had it all and here I am in the fair land of Midian.

And I'm telling you what, it seemed like a different world.

Comparing his life in Egypt to his life in the wilderness amongst the Midianites, that's like night and day difference.

Midian is a dry and desolate land.

And I think there's more to it than just acknowledging that fact as being something that is true, but also figuratively, it was a dry land.

It was a dry period, I believe, for Moses.

You do not going as close as you could get from being the Prince of Egypt to being wanted fugitive to being experienced shepherd boy without some serious introspection.

No way that that happens, no way.

The next slide.

I love this quote by a lady called Lisa Tuckerst.

To fix our thoughts on Jesus is to close our eyes.

To mark this moment by declaring our trust, our faith in God.

To declare to God out loud like Jesus did, not my will, but yours be done.

To stop fixating on the circumstances raging around us.

How often do we do this?

To stop trying to make sense of things that don't make sense in the middle of the journey.

And to stop asking for the knowledge that's too heavy for us to carry.

Then these three points.

We do not know, we do not have to know the plan to know that there is a plan.

Think about that.

We do not have to know the plan to know that there is a plan.

We do not have to feel good to trust that something good is coming.

Amen?

I mean, isn't that our hope?

If this is as good as it gets, I'm ready to go.

Right?

That's what I'm looking forward to.

Just like those people that's mentioned in Hebrews chapter 11.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

They didn't realize all the good things on planet Earth, but they had their eyes set upon something else, something out there.

And then finally, we do not need to see the evidence of changes to trust that it won't always be this hard.

And it may not come in your lifetime, but there's the afterlife.

And both are important.

Both are important.

All right.

We've got Moses to the final stage of his life.

Moses begins the last 40 years of his life kind of right here in chapter number three, Exodus chapter three, beginning in verse one.

Now, Moses, who had been a shepherd now 40 years, you know, whether for better or for worse, that's where he's at.

Yes, he has a wife.

He has kids.

You know, things are going pretty good that way, but he's a shepherd boy still.

And he was tending the flock of Jephthah, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian.

And he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.

There, the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within the bush.

Moses saw that the bush was on fire and that it did not burn up.

So Moses thought, I will go over and see this strange site, why the bush does not burn up.

And when the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush.

Can you imagine this?

God called to him from within the bush.

How did that sound?

You know, how many of you saw that?

I'm not sure it sounded like that.

Not saying that, but maybe it did.

Or maybe it was something else, but I'm telling you what, I'm terrified.

I am terrified at this point.

And so was Moses.

Don't come any closer, God said.

Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.

Then he said, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.

At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.

Probably afraid to be able to see God even.

He's looking at a burning bush.

He's hearing things coming from the bush.

He didn't know what the next step was.

The Lord said, I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt.

I've heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering.

So I have come down to rescue them from the hand.

Who?

I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them out of that land into a good and spacious land.

A land flowing with milk and honey.

The home of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.

And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them.

So now, go.

I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.

I am sending you to bring my people out of Egypt, to draw them out of the land of Egypt.

Moses, this is you.

But he doesn't say, Moses, you're on your own.

He says, I'm going to do it, and I am sending you.

That's how it went.

That's how it went down.

And then Moses had some questions.

I want you to listen.

I think these questions are fair.

I think these questions are honest from Moses.

If he would have responded any differently, I think I would have thought, wow, this is crazy.

This can't be right.

This can't be true.

But here are the questions, and I love the first one that Moses starts off with.

We find it right here in chapter three, verse number 11.

But Moses said to God, who am I?

He's still wrestling.

God, who am I?

You see what's been going on down here?

For the last 40 years, I'm running around in a wilderness.

Every night before I go to bed, I'm thinking about my life and what it is and what it has become and where I've been, and I haven't a clue as to where I am going.

Who am I, God?

Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?

Moses' second question, who are you?

I love this one.

He knows it's God.

He wants some affirmation.

And God said, I, notice his answer.

Let's go to 13.

Moses said to God, suppose, this isn't right.

Yes, it is.

Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, the God of your fathers who sent me, and they asked me, what is his name?

Then what shall I tell them?

God said to Moses, I am who I am.

Thanks for clearing things up for me, God.

This is helpful.

I'm gonna go to Pharaoh and to the Egyptians and tell them, God, I am who I am, sent me, okay?

That's interesting.

That's interesting that God made that statement.

God also said to Moses, say to the Israelites, say to the Israelites, say to the believers, say to the ones who have faith in me, that I am the Lord, the God of your fathers, the lineage, the history, the history, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob has sent me to you.

This is my name forever.

Your name shall call, the name you shall call me from generation to generation.

Third question that Moses had for God.

How can I know for sure?

How can I know all this is really real?

Chapter number four, beginning in verse one, Moses answered, what if they do not believe me?

And you know what?

I think Moses is always playing this game kind of like he's setting out.

None of this is directed towards him.

It's always about somebody else.

What if they don't believe you?

What if they don't have faith in you?

I think what he's really asking is, what if I don't have faith in you?

What if I don't believe in you?

The Lord, what did they say to me?

The Lord did not appear to you.

Then the Lord said to him, what is in your hand?

A staff, he replied.

The Lord said, throw it on the ground.

Moses threw it on the ground.

It became a snake and he ran from it.

That's just like me.

That's me, me and Moses.

Reach out your hand and take it by the tail.

Moses reached out and took hold of the snake and it turned back into a staff in his hand.

This, said the Lord, is so that they may believe the Lord, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob has appeared to you.

Now notice he's talking about him going back to the Israelites.

Fourth question Moses had for God.

What will I say?

Verse number 10 of chapter number four.

Moses said to the Lord, pardon your servant, Lord.

Pardon me.

I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant.

I am slow of speech and tongue.

That's it.

What am I gonna say?

I can't, you know, I can't talk.

I can't talk well.

And again, remember the account in Acts where we read that it said that Moses was powerful in wisdom and speech.

He was powerful.

And yet Moses did not think that of himself.

I can't talk, he says.

What will I say?

The Lord said to him, oh, this is good.

You know, it's good to ask God questions because he's always going to win and he's always going to have.

He may not reveal it to you right away, but this time he did with Moses.

Moses was lucky from that regard.

He cleared it right up because it said in verse number 11, the Lord said to him, who gave human beings their mouths?

If I can give you your mouth, I can surely give you words, right?

Who makes them deaf or mute?

Who gives them sight or makes them blind?

Is it not I, the Lord?

Now go, I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.

Finally, after all these questions, it comes down to this.

The fifth question that Moses had for God was just this.

In verse number 13 of chapter number four.

And Moses said, I'm not your guy.

I'm not your guy.

He actually says, find someone else.

Here's the part that Moses was missing in all of this.

Was kind of missing and it wasn't.

Moses was putting his faith in himself.

Moses was not commended in Hebrews chapter 11 for having faith in himself, for being eloquent, for being the spokesperson, for being this mighty deliverer that everyone was looking for.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

But he was known for his faith in God.

And it was credited to him as righteousness.

Wow.

I'm sure glad that the Israelites, that the Egyptians wasn't privy to this little conversation.

I don't know, maybe it would have helped seeing the burning bush.

I'm sure that would have helped.

But if they just had the audio recording, there's no visuals.

And they really, they heard voices.

They heard the discussion.

They were part of the conversation.

And they heard Moses come up with this last one.

Pardon your servant, Lord, please someone else.

That wouldn't exactly instill a lot of confidence in those he was delivering.

That's our deliverer?

Yes, I'm with Moses on this one.

Find somebody else.

But Moses, as we know, and you can read on.

We could go, this is a long, long story.

Chapter number four tells how Moses went back.

I like, where is this?

Chapter four, verse 18.

Moses went back to Jethro.

His father-in-law said to him, let me return to my own people in Egypt to see if any of them are still alive.

It's like, he's not even owning up.

Like, no, I'm going to go back and leave the children of Israel.

I'm their deliverer.

And I'm going to bring them out.

And I'm going to talk directly to Pharaoh.

And I'm going to do this.

And I'm going to do that.

He's still, he was still hiding from that for whatever reason.

Today, I just want you, as we conclude our thoughts here.

I want you to see the two, the dichotomy of the life of Moses.

I want you to see his flesh and blood.

And in his flesh and blood, I want you to relate to Moses like never before.

But then again, there's this opposite side of Moses.

Moses' faith.

And I want you to emulate Moses like never before in the same regard.

Moses was still scared.

He was scared to do what God had called him to do.

But Moses still did it.

He still did it.

I want to ask you today, what phase are you at in life?

And it doesn't have to be, you know, this neat little package of 40 years, 40 years, 40 years type of thing, or 25 or 25 or 25.

It can be more of these large descriptives where we can, Paul, I'm 50 years old.

And I still feel like I need to be delivered.

Or Paul, I'm 30 years old and just feel like I'm running around in the wilderness, running around in circles.

Nothing's making sense.

I can't get life figured out.

Perhaps that's where you're at.

Or perhaps you are now at the point of where you've been delivered.

You know what you need to do.

You just need to go do it.

You need to be the deliverer that God has called you to be.

Not that you're going to save anybody.

It's not your mouth.

It's not your words.

It's God almighty.

It's God almighty.

I wonder if we could ask ourselves the same questions that Moses asked God.

I wonder if we could ask God those same questions.

Who am I?

Who am I?

Who are you?

How do I know for sure?

And let me help you with this question because I can quote scripture.

We did it right at the beginning of the lesson.

Hebrews 11, 6 tells us we're not going to know everything.

Lisa Tuckers did a wonderful job.

We don't have to know the plan to know there is a plan.

And so God tells each one of us without faith, Blaine, it's impossible to please God.

Alec, without faith, it is impossible to please God.

You can be a murderer and still please God.

You can be a big coward and still please God.

That's what I see in Moses.

But only if we have faith because it's impossible to please him otherwise.

What will I say?

What will I say in response to all of this?

What will I say to others?

What will I say?

Let's just start real.

What will I say on the way home?

Let's start real basic.

What will I say to my wife, my husband, my child, my mother, my brother, my sister, my family in Christ?

What will I say?

And then finally, will we be an instrument of God's deliverance to other people?

Are you going to be like the prophet of old who said, here am I, send me.

Here am I, send me.

Or are we going to be like Moses who says, I'm not your guy.

He said, I'm not your guy.

But he was still known for his faith.

Be real, be real with God.

He's not afraid to hear about your shortcomings because he knows them already.

We're scared of ourselves.

We're scared of other people.

I'm, look, I'm right there at the front of line.

You guys line up behind me.

I'm the biggest coward there ever was, all right?

But these are the things that we need to take seriously.

The questions that we need to ask ourselves, will you stand as we close in prayer today?

We will close as Jesus taught his disciples so long ago.

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory forever.

Amen.

Have a fabulous Sunday.

You'll be hearing from us next week.