Moses' Equipping

Good morning, church.

Reading from the book of Exodus, chapter four.

Then Moses answered, But behold, they will not believe me or listen to my voice, for they will say, The Lord did not appear to you.

The Lord said to him, What is that in your hand?

He said, A staff.

And he said, Throw it on the ground.

So he threw it on the ground and it became a serpent, and Moses ran from it.

But the Lord said to Moses, Put out your hand and catch it by the tail.

So he put out his hand and caught it, and it became a staff in his hand, that they may believe that the Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you.

Again the Lord said to him, Put your hand inside your cloak.

And he put his hand inside his cloak, and when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous like snow.

Then God said, Put your hand back inside your cloak.

So he put his hand back inside his cloak, and when he took it out, behold, it was restored like the rest of his flesh.

If they will not believe you, God said, Or listen to the first sign, they may believe the latter sign.

If they will not believe even these two signs, or listen to your voice, you shall take some water from the Nile, and pour it on the dry ground, and the water that you shall take from the Nile will become blood on the dry ground.

But Moses said to the Lord, O my Lord, I am not eloquent, either in the past or since you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and of tongue.

Then the Lord said to him, Who has made man's mouth?

Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind?

Is it not I, the Lord?

Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak.

But he said, Oh my Lord, please send someone else.

Then the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses, and he said, Is there not Aaron your brother, the Levite?

I know that he can speak well.

Behold, he is coming out to meet you, and when he sees you, he will be glad in his heart.

You shall speak to him and put the words in his mouth, and I will be with your mouth and with his mouth, and will teach you both what to do.

He shall speak for you to the people, and he shall be your mouth, and you shall be as God to him, and take in your hand this staff with which you shall do the signs.

This is the word of the Lord.

Please be seated.

Good morning.

Thanks for joining us this morning.

Um James.

Oh, yeah.

My son, I've got there's a little uh thing on this that's supposed like a little foam thing that's supposed to make it not windy or something.

And my my little eight-month-old just steals it.

And so it could be anywhere.

So if it's like, why it does it sound James is particularly breathy this morning.

I don't know if it will sound like that, but also I'm feeling particularly breathy this morning.

Uh anyway, thanks for joining us this morning.

Uh my name is James Rathman.

I'm the pastor here at Redemption Church Denver.

Uh there's a great uh Brad Paisley song that says there's nothing that'll test your strength, like a long sermon on a pretty Sunday.

And it's a beautiful day.

A beautiful day.

Uh it's wonderful to have spring in the air.

Uh, we're continuing through our time in Exodus this morning.

And we, as we as we just heard, we are hearing the final section of Moses' call at the burning bush.

And in this section, we see Moses equipped with these signs to give to the Israelites, but amidst his equipping, he is resistant to going, and his resistance grows to its greatest point, um, which finally becomes surrender.

So, what we're looking at is in Moses' equipping is the signs that the Lord gives to him, and what those signs mean.

We're going to look at what Moses' resistance means, and how it is that the Lord's commitment overshadows Moses' resistance.

So that's what we'll explore this morning.

Let's pray.

Father in heaven, we thank you for your loving kindness, for the beauty of spring, for the glory of a blue sky day that we got to walk into this morning.

Lord, thank you for gathering us together as your church to hear your word, to sing your praises, to partake of your sacraments.

Lord, we stand in your kindness towards us.

We look today at the story of you gathering your people and of you equipping the leaders that you have called.

Lord, we thank you that you continue this work today of gathering and equipping.

We pray that you would do that in our hearts and for Redemption Church Denver this morning.

In Jesus' name, amen.

So we're still at the burning bush.

We need to remember that like this is the this is the context of this long conversation that God has with Moses.

And this is the final scene at the burning bush.

And in this uh time of Moses' equipping, let's kind of keep our eye on the ball a bit and consider what exactly is God calling Moses to do?

You know, what is the next step that Moses is being asked to take?

And that was covered last week, although I spent basically all of last week just talking about the name of God.

So as a bit of a refresher, because it was just read, in verse 16 and 17 of chapter 3, God commands Moses, and he says, Go and gather the elders of Israel together and say to them, The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob has appeared to me, saying, I have observed you and what has been done to you in Egypt, and I promise that I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt to the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, a land flowing with milk and honey.

That is what Moses is being commanded to say.

Go to the Israelites, particularly to the elders of Israel, and tell them the Lord has seen your affliction, the Lord will draw you out of Egypt from under this affliction, and the Lord will bring you into the promised land.

The Lord has seen, the Lord will bring you out, and the Lord will bring you into a new land flowing with milk and honey.

That is the command upon Moses and what he is heading to do.

But Moses has this practical consideration.

So the Lord will equip Moses with these particular signs to attest to exactly what Moses is being told to say.

That he has seen you, that this is the Lord your God who has seen you, that he will bring you out of Egypt, and he will bring you into a promised land.

So let's look at how the Lord gives to Moses these three signs.

Exodus 4, 1.

Then Moses answered, but behold, they will not believe me or listen to my voice, for they will say, The Lord did not appear to you.

Right away, we can see that Moses's main consideration is his voice.

He sort of keeps coming around to this and it kind of uh pricks up.

Look, this is it this is a you know, the bush and everything.

This has been great.

They're not going to listen to my voice.

They won't listen to my voice.

And they will say, the Lord did not appear to you.

Because there's an easy counter-argument for when someone claims to have heard from the Lord.

It goes like this No, you didn't.

It works almost 100% of the time.

And Moses understands this, and he uniquely understands it, because Moses had also understood, he had some sort of self-consciousness that he was to be the deliverer of the Hebrew people while he was in Egypt.

And he's tried this before.

And so when he took action, and notice you can you can sort of get a sense of Moses' personality.

Moses, we don't see misspeak.

We see him take uh crazy action.

In fact, his great sin that will keep him out of the promised land is this outburst of anger and a uh hitting of a rock when he was commanded to just speak to the rock.

That seems to be a tendency in Moses' personality.

And when he was in Egypt and he seeks to deliver his people, he does not give a grand speech to the Pharaoh, and he does not stand up and try and rally folks to his cause.

He takes action.

And this is part of the goodness of Moses, is that he consistently takes action against injustice.

But when he has tried that before, and he murders the overseer who was abusing the Hebrew slave, the Hebrew people do not receive him as a deliverer.

They deny him as their deliverer and they sell him out.

So Moses has this understanding of look, I've been down this road before.

They won't listen to me.

I know that they won't listen to me.

And in their not listening to me, I was betrayed and I've been driven to this wilderness where I am now.

So this is not a just like a self- just a mere self-consciousness.

This is also Moses' own experience of what he has experienced as trying to be the deliverer of the Hebrew people.

But the Lord, hearing this objection, and I think understanding it is reasonable, commits to equip Moses with some with three signs.

And so he begins with the sign of the staff.

Next is 4, verses 2 through 3.

Isaiah 4:2–3

The Lord said to him, What is that in your hand?

He said, A staff, and he said, Throw it on the ground.

So he threw it on the ground, and it became a serpent, and Moses ran from it.

Throughout this time at the bush, we've had mention of God's hand and of Pharaoh's hand.

This is about power.

And Exodus can be understood as a demonstration of the Lord's power over against the highest power that existed in the world at that time.

And so when you hear hand, you should think power.

And that's it's very sensible.

Your hand is how you extend your power into the world, is by your hands.

So if you consider what a staff is, as the Lord draws Moses' attention to his hand, a staff is the extension of the hand.

And so it is like a way of multiplying your power out into the world.

Likewise, Pharaoh would carry a staff or a scepter, which was a sign of his power.

And I had read a commentator who's like an Egyptologist who does a who went into some in-depth explanation about how for Egyptians a staff is a sign of power because the Pharaoh carried a staff.

But it part of it, it was very interesting because he had he had evidence and things.

But also I part of me wanted to say, like, yeah, because they're humans.

Like every every culture, a staff is a sign of power.

Like this is a it is it is very practical.

This is the way that you extend your power into the world.

It is like the most fundamental extension of human power is a staff.

And so it, of course, becomes a sign of royal authority and royal power.

So Moses has this sort of power, and God tells him to lay it on the ground, and it becomes a serpent.

And Moses ran from it.

Now, the staff becomes a serpent.

So we could probably do this part together as we interpret this sign.

But maybe let me take a brief aside and talk a bit about what we're doing.

When we read these sorts of things in scripture, and we think Moses is being equipped, our minds can sort of slip into Moses is being given magic tricks.

And there's a sense in which, yes, of course, that's true.

These are these are like magic.

But they are not arbitrary demonstrations of power.

This is not, Moses is given these, like, hey, I bet they'd listen to you if you could turn a staff into a snake and then turn it back into a staff again.

Those are not reasons to listen to somebody.

They are incredible demonstrations of power.

What Moses is being given are signs.

Signs that say something in particular.

And signs that uniquely attest to what God is telling Moses to claim to the people of Israel, which is God will deliver you from Pharaoh, He will bring you, he has seen your affliction, and He will bring you out, and He will bring you into a promised land.

That is the claim.

So these signs are given him to attest to that.

Okay, thank you for that brief aside.

Now that we know what we're doing, we're not just looking at looking at wonderful tricks.

Illusions, Michael.

What we're looking at, you like half of you knew that was coming.

What we're looking at is particular signs.

These are like these are like visible words.

So the staff turns into a snake and Moses runs from it.

Alright, so to remind you what book we're in, this is the Bible.

What do you think about snakes?

Serpent in the garden.

Yeah, serpent in serpent in the garden.

How'd that go?

Not good.

Okay.

We're all look at you guys are regular old interpreters.

You don't even need me for this part of the job.

So the serpent is the this original enemy of God's people.

It could have turned it into there's other strange things that have happened.

We've had dreams where cows eat cows.

You know, it could have turned it into something else.

This is this is not arbitrary that it turns into a serpent.

It turns into a serpent, the the enemy of God's people from the very beginning.

Now, who is the enemy of God's people in this story?

Pharaoh.

Yeah, that's not this isn't that hard.

And Pharaoh is the enemy of God's people, and what has Pharaoh done to what have been Moses' and Pharaoh's interactions that we've seen so far?

Pharaoh finds out that Moses is a murderer, and what does Moses do?

Does he run towards Pharaoh or away from Pharaoh?

That's right.

So the snake is on the ground, the serpent, the enemy of God's people, Moses runs away.

There's a sense in which we've been here before.

This is the ordinary response to the serpent.

Safety is in running away from the serpent.

Now, verse 4 but the Lord said to Moses, put out your hand and catch it by the tail.

So he put out his hand and caught it, and it became a staff in his hand.

Moses will go to the serpent, the enemy of God's people, pick it up, and it will become hard, rigid in his hand.

And that will be Moses' power.

And Moses will show that he, by the power of God, is able to reach out, grab the serpent, God will harden the serpent, and that will be their deliverance.

And that is the very story that will unfold.

Moses will be sent to Pharaoh.

Pharaoh's heart will be hardened by the Lord.

That great serpent will be hardened by the Lord.

But in Pharaoh's hardening, the power of God will be demonstrated.

And it will account for their deliverance.

In Exodus 3.19, what we saw last week, God explains that he knows this.

He says, But I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless compelled by a mighty hand.

He knows this.

He understands this about the king of Egypt.

And so when Moses is going and he's saying, I have been spoken to by the Lord, and he is going to deliver us out of here because he's seen our affliction.

You could imagine, especially the way like a Hebrew would talk.

Because they taught like this is the way people talk in the Bible.

Like think of the Psalms and the way the beauty of the language.

So you'll be able to reach out and grab that serpent.

Do you understand the serpent that we're under?

You'll be able to reach out and take him up in your hand, like he's a staff, and you'll be able to shepherd us out of here.

So when Moses is sent, remember these signs are for the Israelites to compel them to understand that Moses has been called by the Lord.

Then, if that to answer that question, Moses will be able to say, look at this staff.

And the staff will slither away, and they will run, but he will walk up to it, he will take it up, and it will become rigid in his hand, and he will show his power.

And then the Israelites might reasonably conclude perhaps he has been called by the Lord to take up that wicked serpent, and he will be the one who has given this power to rule over us.

And it would be an understandable conclusion.

You see how it's different than just like, ooh.

It is ooh, like I don't want to but it's not just that, it's it's meaningful.

Now then the Lord continues, and in verses six through seven, again the Lord said to him, put your hand inside your cloak.

And he put his hand inside his cloak, and when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous, like snow.

Then God said, Put your hand back inside your cloak.

So he put his hand back inside his cloak, and when he took it out, behold, it was restored, like the rest of his flesh.

Now of the three signs, this is perhaps the strangest, because the other two, which are the staff that turns into a serpent, and the Nile, which is uh being shown to be blood, turning into blood, those will take place in the rest of the narrative.

We we will see that the serpent battle, those there's going to be this excellent wizard duel in the courts of Pharaoh, and there will be a serpent battle, and Moses' serpents will eat the other serpents.

And so Pharaoh will have demonstrated before him this uh uh deal with the serpent, the the miracle with the serpent.

And the whole Nile will be turned into blood later.

That's the first plague.

But there's no leprosy.

So this sign that's shown to the Egyptians, this sign is just intended for the Israelite elders.

And I think that this is uniquely for them.

Because what's being shown is something like you have this uncleanness, this impurity in the land that you're dwelling in.

And I'm going to draw you close to my heart, which is language that we will hear the Lord say.

This, this, this being put under your cloak is the same as being drawn close to your bosom.

And the Lord will say that I will draw you close to my bosom, I will hold you close to my heart, and then you will be made clean.

And that story is not a story of wrath against the Egyptians, as the other two are.

And that's why those signs will be shown to the Egyptians.

This sign is just for the Israelites.

And this is a sign that shows, I am the one, the God of your fathers, who will draw you close, and in drawing you close I will deliver you.

So they might understand that.

And finally, the Lord says to Moses, if they will not believe even these two signs, or listen to your voice, you shall take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground, and the water that you shall take from the Nile will become blood on the dry ground.

This last sign is once again about wrath against the Egypti against the Egyptians.

We need to understand that the deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt and the wrath, the judgment of God against the Egyptians are the same.

Those are the same event.

God's wrath against and judgment on the Egyptians and his salvation of the Israelites are the same event.

Consider the Passover.

Everybody walks into the sea, only the Israelites walk out because of the judgment against the Egyptians.

So those are the same.

So God is showing that he has seen the affliction of the Israelites.

And he's showing that by taking the water of the Nile and turning it into blood.

What God is saying here is, I have seen your affliction.

And you can understand why.

Of course, the Nile is, in a sense, the lifeblood of Egypt.

We learned in the stories in Genesis over and over again: if there's a famine in the land of promise, where do you go?

Egypt, yeah, which is just like a good like bear grills tip to have in your back pocket in case you find yourself in the promised land and there's a famine.

Now there's not a famine in Egypt.

Why?

Because they don't depend on the rains.

They depend on the flood.

And so it typically the flooding of the Nile, the seasonal flooding of the Nile.

So and that typically works out.

Except for these seven strange years.

See our previous sermon series.

So of course the Nile is the lifeblood of Egypt, and there's a sense in which God is saying, like, I hold the life of Egypt in my hands.

But I think that there's something more particular that's taking place.

The command of Pharaoh was to take the firstborn sons, or excuse me, just the newborn sons of the Hebrew people and throw them into the Nile.

And the Egyptians might have thought, our problems are being washed away.

And the Hebrew people might have thought, there is no remembrance of the sin against these boys.

Because I go to the Nile, and it just looks like the Nile.

But Moses is able to take the blood from the Nile, hold it before them, and say, God sees the blood.

God has not forgotten that this Nile, this lifeblood of Egypt is covered in the blood of your children.

He remembers the blood.

And so Moses is able to say, because he will claim, God has told me that he's seen your affliction.

And they might say, No, he hasn't.

Because I've been things keep getting worse and more oppressive for us.

And then God, and then Moses would be able to say, look, remember the Nile.

He sees the blood in it.

And it would transform into blood before them.

These signs are perfectly attuned to what God is telling the Israelites.

If you wanted to, this is not just like, look at, I talk to God and look at these tricks that I can do now.

Do you believe me?

No, these are not arbitrary signs.

This is God communicating clearly to his people.

I have seen, I have the power, I will deliver you and make you clean.

You will be my people.

There's also an element of this where you can see Moses' station and his equipping being established in the signs.

Because don't you see the prophet, priest king element to these signs?

The prophet is the one who goes and speaks woes against the nations.

The one who goes and tells the serpent, you will be rendered hopeless when God's power is shown over you.

The priest is the one who makes pure the people, who literally attends to the skin diseases of the people so that they might be made clean to come into the Lord's presence.

The king is the one who sheds blood on behalf of the people, who accomplishes the vengeance of God.

Moses is being shown here to be the prophet, priest, and king to have these roles for the Lord's people.

Now, if you're Moses at this point, and you've just, you know, thrown the serpent down, picked it back up, you're standing in front of the burning bush, the angel of the Lord, you're over here with your hand.

You know?

You're telling me you didn't try it more than once.

Then you would think that your response would be, all right, before I had these tricks, I was a little nervous.

Remember my question about my voice, but I think I'm gonna be just fine.

That was not Moses' response.

That may be our response.

But I think Moses.

Moses is reluctant, but he's reluctant in I think of all the right ways.

So Moses said to the Lord, O my Lord, I am not eloquent, either in the past or since you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and of tongue.

Moses, there's a sense in which he's like, I asked you a question, really, I asked you a question about my voice, and that they won't listen to my voice.

And you've given me these great wondrous signs.

But you have equipped me in this way, but you haven't equipped me in the way that I think I really need to be equipped to do this.

We don't know exactly what was wrong with Moses' voice.

I don't think it was just ineloquence, you know, like he was like Pharaoh's household's toastmasters, he came last once.

It is likely some sort of impediment, a stammer.

Uh the Hebrew is heavy of tongue.

Um could have just had a heavy tongue.

That's the one thing I won't interpret symbolically in this passage, which is funny to me.

Alone in my office.

Now here I am saying it to all of you.

Moses considers that the place that he needs equipping to him is the very place where he experiences his greatest weakness.

And God equips him in this really incredible, undeniable way and leaves in the same condition the weakness that he showed up with.

And so Moses might think, why not address my greatest weakness?

Why leave that here?

So the Lord says, in verses 11 and 12, then the Lord said to him, Who has made man's mouth?

When the Lord starts asking questions like this, you probably you might have overstepped a bit.

Well, actually, that's probably saying too much.

You because I don't think Moses overstepped, has overstepped here.

I think he will a bit next in this next sentence.

But here I don't think he has.

I think he's he's properly engaging.

The Lord said to him, Who has made man's mouth?

Who makes him mute or deaf or seeing or blind?

Is it not I, the Lord?

Now, I like that.

Well, that's settled.

Now, therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak.

So the Lord, Moses considering, look, the thing that I really need fixed here in order to do this is this greatest weakness that I have.

It's rendered me incapable of leading in all of these other places.

Like it's why when I walked up to the Hebrew and the Egyptian, I wasn't able to piece that one together.

So I did what seemed best.

I took action and I killed them, but it was ineffective, and now I'm here in this wilderness.

When I tried to talk to bring together the Hebrew people when they were fighting, and I tried to bring some understanding there, it was useless, and I was driven away from Egypt.

We can imagine from what we've seen in the story, Moses thinking in these ways.

But God says, I'm the one who makes mouths.

And I'm leaving yours just as it is.

I'm the one who makes you stutter or not.

And I'm leaving yours precisely as it is.

This great weakness of yours, I'm not addressing.

Do you think it's because I can't?

Let me remind you who makes these sorts of things.

I've been in the mouth making game a long time.

I'm leaving it precisely where I want it to be left.

Weakness intact.

So then Moses replies, Exodus 4.13, but he said, O my Lord, please send someone else.

It's a more ambiguous Hebrew phrase, which more literally would sound like, O Lord, send now by the hand of whom you will send.

Which is kind of like this word salad of just send now by the hand, find another hand to send.

So the sense of it is conveyed, I think, in our translation.

Send someone else, please, Lord.

Send someone else.

Look at Moses' reluctance.

Not my hand, not me.

I don't want to do this.

Now there's a sense in which this is like.

I've referenced the scene like quarterly, probably, not that much, six monthly.

Every the week after each eclipse.

And I remember remember in Gladiator when Marcus Aurelius and Maximus are in the tent at the very beginning of the movie, right before that snake Joaquin Phoenix kills him.

And Marcus is trying to give the empire to Maximus.

And he says, I will clothe you with great power of the empire.

And Maximus says with all my heart, no.

And then Marcus says, but that's why it must be you.

It's very easy, man, to suffocate.

Should have seen it coming.

God is always choosing reluctant leaders.

He's always choosing reluctant leaders.

And if you are not reluctant, you will be soon.

He's always choosing reluctant leaders.

Jeremiah begins his book.

The word of the Lord came to me.

And I said, I'm too young.

And I cannot speak.

And God said, Don't let anybody tell you you're too young.

I'm the one who made you in your mother's womb.

David, he actually seems.

Remember the whole Goliath thing?

It actually doesn't seem that reluctant at all.

He'd get pretty reluctant.

Driven out of the court by the king.

Living with the Philistines.

He is driven to a place of utter dependence.

Jonah's probably the perfect example.

He just runs and despite himself, is the greatest evangelist in the Old Testament.

We hear the doubt of Moses, and we think there shouldn't have been doubt there.

That doubt, this is what you need to see, that doubt is the context of surrender.

On the other side of that doubt is Moses' full surrender.

Because this is the point where we will see Moses has this decision.

This is not what I want.

And right there, he has to see am I going to do what I want or am I going to do what God wants?

So he is a reluctant, reluctant leader.

If he knew what was coming, I think he would have been even more reluctant.

Any of you who are called to lead, you know that anyone who thinks they want to is a fool.

I used to hear stories of people under bad leaders and think, gosh, that person sounds terrible.

The type of leader that you were under just sounds like an awful person.

I can't believe there are people like that in the world.

And I'm so sorry that you had to work under them.

Now I hear stories of leaders like that, and I think, yeah, I've done stuff like that.

I've been cowardly and not stepped into situations when I ought to have.

And had to restore trust.

This, the context of leadership, there's a sense in which you're all called to this.

We are all called to this.

What Moses is being called to is not a celebration of his strength.

That is not what it looks like.

It looks like over and over again in the plainest ways, your weakness will be exposed.

How often did Moses' speech impediment bother the sheep he was with every day?

But now he's being drawn into the context to act as the prophet of God.

His weakness will be constantly on display.

If you don't understand that that's what you're stepping into, that the way of Christ is stepping into a world in which your weakness will constantly be exposed.

Shown.

Look, you know, Moses just saw these wonderful signs.

A serpent turned into a staff, hand healed, the Nile turned into blood.

And he doubts the Lord's control over the situation.

Isn't that like Pharaoh?

Why does God choose Moses?

Moses will be described to us later as the meekest man who ever lived.

I think that we see seeds of that here.

Where he understands that if this is going to work, and this is where that doubt becomes the context of surrender.

If it isn't the context of surrender, then it is just doubt and it's damning.

But if it is the context of surrender, then it is right and honest and true.

For Moses to say, I can't do this.

Okay, now you can do it.

Now you can do it.

Because the requirement is utter dependence upon the Lord to deliver.

God is putting Moses in a situation where he will not be able to reflect back on the strength of Moses or the skill of Moses, not for where he's heading.

He's heading somewhere only God knows.

All that Moses will be able to depend upon is the promise of the Lord.

He said he will deliver.

He is trustworthy and good.

Why did he choose me?

Probably because I'm so not equipped for this.

And I know that.

He likes that sort of thing.

God chooses the reluctant to lead over and over again.

Because when that doubt switches to surrender, now they are in the place where they are not serving themselves, they are serving the Lord.

That is the source of true courage.

That is the place of true leadership, surrendering to the Lord.

Now, Exodus 4.14.

Then the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses, and he said, Is there not Aaron, your brother, the Levite?

I know that he can speak well.

Behold, he is coming out to meet you, and when he sees you, he will be glad in his heart.

So the Lord's anger is kindled against Moses.

Moses, there's the sense in which Moses is experiencing the pattern of what Pharaoh will experience.

He has been shown the signs and wonders which ought to attest plainly to the Lord's power and glory.

That the Lord ought to be the one who has followed.

And then Moses, in his frailty and weakness, and sinfulness, does not trust the Lord.

So the anger of the Lord is kindled against Moses.

Like Pharaoh.

But Moses' heart is not hardened.

The anger of the Lord that is kindled against Moses is not such that it hardens Moses' heart, it softens him.

You may in your doubt experience the anger of the Lord.

But when you are his people, you can know that the anger of the Lord will work to soften you.

Will make you useful.

The type of thing that is able to suffer on his behalf and trust in him.

And look at the shape of the anger of the Lord.

It kind of accomplishes this.

God's anger keeps Moses in God's plan.

Because Moses is like, okay, maybe there's an exit door here if I'm just like, nope, not me.

And God's like, you.

And isn't that what it's like?

You know, it like when you find yourself responsible for things in charge of things, that these things are your problems, and you're like, yeah, but what if they just weren't?

No such world.

They are.

They're yours.

And so the anger of the Lord has this capacity to keep you in the story.

We had our cultural landscape is full of mythologies that you're able to just escape.

That there is an exit door that you could always hit.

You know, you could always just go do van life.

Yeah, there's no there's no place to shower.

No exit door.

Because you the truth is you can't.

And family birthdays will come up and you'll have to get back together or holidays or something, and so you'll drive back into town and you'll realize that you're in the same fights that you were before the van.

You know, we we have these mythologies.

I do that with ask Zach.

If I'm looking up motorcycles, things are not going well in my heart.

I'm like imagining this like whole other existence.

My the there Megan, can I go ride my motorcycle for a couple hours this Saturday while you stay home with the kids?

What am I insane?

The amount it does not fit in my life, but there's this whole other life.

The anger of the Lord keeps you in.

Says, look, I've called you.

You can't leave.

So it like slams the door.

Keeps you in the plan.

But his anger lasts for a moment.

So his anger slams the door on Moses' desire to escape.

He's like, nope, sorry, dude.

You're in.

But it doesn't leave him alone.

It even seems like the Lord like it seems like Moses.

It's bizarre.

There's several things that are bizarre about this passage.

One is that the signs are not convincing to Moses, because we think that they just absolutely would be.

And the other thing is that it seems like the Lord meets him halfway.

And he in his anger, he keeps him in and then he says, Remember your brother, Aaron?

He's going to be coming.

He's going to be glad to see you.

I know Aaron can talk.

Remember, I make the mouths.

I know this, I know these sorts of things.

He'll be with you.

You'll be his God to him.

And he'll say exactly what you need to be said.

We have these wonderful signs from the Lord of his deliverance.

You do.

And you have places that you're being called to lead in your life right now.

And you won't step into them because you know that they will expose your weakness.

If I just avoided it, I wouldn't have to encounter how incompetent I am to move through this situation.

The Lord will close the door on that.

And that very place of doubt can be the context of your surrender to the Lord.

Okay, I will not step into this because of my ability.

I will step into this because I believe the promise of God.

Because I trust him.

Because I know that the Lord is the deliverer.

We have the signs of the one who is the true healer, who's made the lepros clean by touching them.

We have the sign of the one who took the serpent, Satan, and crushed him by the heel.

We have the one whose own blood is poured out.

So we understand the certainty of our rescue in Christ.

See those signs.

Trust in the Lord.

Lead where you're called to, like Moses.

Your weakness will be exposed.

The Lord will attend to you.

His strength will be more greatly shown in your weakness.

Are there any questions today?

One?

Would you speak to the foreshadowing of prophet, priest, and king in Moses to Christ?

It is there.

There is such a foreshadowing of prophet, priest, and king in Moses and in Christ.

Christ is the ultimate prophet, priest, and king.

He proclaims to us the gospel of our salvation as our great prophet.

He is the true high priest who offers not something on his behalf and then something on our behalf, but offers his very self as the sacrifice and lives eternally to plead his sacrifice on our behalf, eternally to intercede on our behalf right now.

He is the king who counts our enemies as his enemies, who conquers our enemies on our behalf, draws us in to be his people, and then gives us his people the spoils of his victory as our good king.

This will be shown in Moses.

Moses is a Levite, his brother.

The priesthood will be established from his lineage.

Moses is the prophet who is sent to speak to his people and speak against the wickedness of Pharaoh.

He will be a king of his people, the ruler.

He is the one, the tiered structure that he will lead his people through of the uh thousands and fifties and hundreds and fifties and tens that he will be at the top of that structure to intercede on behalf of his people.

He is the pattern of the prophet, priest, and king.

And Moses himself will say that there will come one who is like me.

He will be the true one, and he has come in Christ.

So who are you going to depend on?

Yourself or the promised one.

In 1 Corinthians 11, 23, Paul writes, For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you.

That the Lord Jesus, on the night when he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, This is my body which is for you.

Do this in remembrance of me.

In the same way also he took the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood.

Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.

For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

Our Lord, on our behalf, entered into the pain of leading us.

So much so that he took on the very death that we deserved, so that we might be rescued by him.

This is the glory of our Lord.

In the night before he was betrayed, and if you lead, you will be.

Moses will be.

By Aaron.

This is an I already did it, gave this sermon.

He on the night before he was betrayed, he took the bread and he broke it.

He said, This is my body which is broken for you.

And he took the cup and he said, This is the blood of the new covenant which is poured out for you for the forgiveness of sins.

How can a people like us possibly hold together unless we are a people who forgive one another's sins, who understand ourselves to be full of weaknesses that are to be forgiven of one another, and see in our God that he draws close to us and uses us in the midst of our weaknesses.

He invites you to the table because he has atoned for you.

So all of you who've been baptized into his name, who confess Christ as Lord, we invite you to the table this morning, that you might partake of this meal.

Holy Father, we pray that you would bless this time together in this time of communion.

Lord, we ask that you would fill our hearts with an understanding of your great power, in this truth that your great power is demonstrated in our weakness, and that our hope, we would be the type of people who strangely hope in our assurance of who you are, not blind to our weaknesses, but not stunted by them, not so fixated on them that they are the most important factor in any given situation.

Lord, but you are.