Flight to Midian

Today's reading is Exodus 2, verses 11 through 22.

Exodus 2:11–22

One day, when Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and looked on their burdens, and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his people.

He looked this way and that, and seeing no one, he struck down the Egyptian and hit him in the sand.

When he went out the next day, behold, two Hebrews were struggling together.

And he said to the man in the wrong, Why do you strike your companion?

He answered, Who made you a prince and a judge over us?

Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?

Then Moses was afraid and thought, Surely the thing is known.

And when Pharaoh heard of it, he sought to kill Moses.

But Moses fled from Pharaoh and stayed in the land of Midian, and he sat down by a well.

Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came and drew water and filled the troughs to water their father's flock.

Now the shepherds came and drove them away, but Moses stood up and saved them and watered their flock.

When they came home to their father Raoel, he said, How is it that you have come home so soon today?

They said, An Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds, and even drew water for us and watered the flock.

He said to his daughters, Then where is he?

Why have you left the man?

Call him that he may eat bread.

And Moses was content to dwell with the man, and he gave Moses his daughter Zipporah.

She gave birth to a son, and he called his name Gershem, for he said, I have been a sojourner in a foreign land.

This is the word of the Lord.

You may be seated.

Thanks for joining us this morning.

My name is James Rathwin.

I'm the pastor here at Redemption Church Denver.

Today we are continuing our time in Exodus, and uh uh we get that story where Moses murders the Egyptian and hides him in the sand.

Uh it's a good one.

So uh before we move into this text today, let's pray together uh uh for our time this morning.

Holy Father, we thank you for bringing us together this morning that we might worship you.

Lord, we thank you for the reminder of the depth of your love towards us to get to sing that together with your church.

Holy Father, we pray that you would give us wisdom to understand what you have for us in the scripture this morning, that you show us the wonder of what uh Moses, how you prepared Moses for the task that that you had set out for him.

Lord, I pray that you would open our eyes to the ways that you prepare us and the ways that you grow us uh and and care for us and shape our stories.

Lord, I pray that you would give us wisdom to understand how it is that Christ exemplifies what we see in Moses today.

Lord, that the depth of your love is most highly revealed to us in Christ and his sacrifice for us.

Lord, I pray that we'd see those things this morning in Jesus' name.

Amen.

So, yeah, this is one of those weird stories where uh Moses kills someone.

I think it's the only time that happens, but we haven't finished the book yet.

And oftentimes when we approach stories like this, you can kind of tell how your ordinarily uh sort of what your what your ordinary disposition towards reading scripture is.

And I I felt this kind of revealed to me as I just struggled to break open this text of what what is happening here and what does this mean.

And I recognize that I think uh despite all of our gospel-centeredness and and looking to read the the scriptures through the lens of the gospel and understand the narratives of scripture, it is so easy for us to just slip into just just little reading the Bible is just morality fables, as sort of just tales of here's a here's a story and here's a lesson with a with a moral.

And uh then it becomes very hard to understand, and we start to interpret it our spiritual lives in that manner, where we start to interpret really the whole of our Christianity when we're left to our own devices, is just is just sort of a morality tale where you uh uh understand the rules and then you try and live a moral life, and and whether or not you do or not is how is how good you're doing as a Christian.

And that means that we don't come to, we come to the church to sort of like brush up on our morality and like, hey, what are what are we supposed to be thinking about immigrants and what are we supposed to be thinking about abortion and what are we supposed to be thinking about?

And we get like moral takes and we think of that as sort of the shape of our Christianity.

But then if we want to think about our our growth as people, our development as as humans, then we don't we don't think of that in a church lens.

We go, we outsource that to like Tony Robbins or or someone who's gonna talk and he'll call clap when he talks, and you know, which is a good, probably rhetorically, it's powerful.

But we outsource the the thinking of our thinking of our lives as having a narrative of growth in them, so that in where we are right now, God might be participating with us in this place, but he might actually be doing something to transform us and to grow us.

And he shows us the ways that he does this throughout his throughout uh the scriptures and through the narratives of the lives of the people that he gives us.

And so I part of what I want to have happen today is that that sort of um fractured way of engaging with the scriptures and that sort of dissonance of the scriptures are where we get moral tales, like Aesop's fables or something.

Uh and uh the the ideas of development and growth, those are uh that's where we go to uh a secular lens or a um uh a therapeutic lens or uh um you guys know what I'm talking about.

I ran out of examples, but just think of the uh uh you we just don't, I think we just don't read the scriptures and think that it engages with us on that level or that it has anything to say to us there.

Well, it it really does.

Because in today's story, we see Moses do two good things.

Uh I'll hope to show today that Moses killing the Egyptian is good.

That was the right thing to do.

But it was ineffective, it didn't work.

He kills the Egyptian, I will argue, right thing to do, should have killed that Egyptian, but it does not deliver the Hebrews.

And then in the next story, he's exiled because of it, he's not in the station of life where he's able to accomplish this mission.

Then the next story is in the land of Midian, and he encounters these seven women who are trying to water their flocks.

They are being oppressed by local shepherds, he delivers them, and it works.

These two good things.

There's one situation where it doesn't work, he's ineffective, and there's another situation where it does work and it is effective.

But the difference between them that I hope to show today is not a moral difference.

It's not a moral difference.

And as Christians, we don't have category, we we've like lost this category for non-moral differences.

And so we're only able to interpret things at this one plane of understanding.

And so what we like to say, the way that you might have come into this sermon expecting to hear, I know I know what I went into this sermon expecting to preach, which was look, Moses is a murderer.

That means he's a sinner, like you all.

And God, look how God still uses sinners.

Now, that's true.

That is a true story.

But it's something that I think I've learned in preaching through Genesis and preaching and beginning to preach through Exodus, and I guess being a preacher.

Is that if the Bible wants to tell you something, it does.

It does tell you it.

You know, like when there are uh when there you want stories of God uses people who are sinners.

Like it makes very clear, very plain the distorted heart of David, and then shows us his usefulness.

It makes very clear and very plain the distorted heart of Samson and then shows us that he's using it.

So if you're preaching those stories, preach that.

Preach that look how God uses sinners like us.

But that's not the only story that the Bible tells.

And that's not, I don't think that's the story that's being told here and the story of Moses.

And so we need to it just kind of learn to let it do the talking.

Like if it if the scripture wanted to say, Moses kills, I'm getting ahead of my sermon, which means I might end up preaching it twice.

And you guys didn't sign up for that.

So let's just get into the text for the day.

Exodus 2, 11 through 22.

One day, when Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and looked on their burdens, and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his people.

He looked this way and that, and seeing no one, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.

Okay, so Moses is about 40 years old at this point.

Moses has grown up, and he's been raised in the luxury of the palace in Egypt.

He has been raised as a prince of Egypt.

Like, that's where they got the name for that movie.

The Ten Commandments.

Just kidding, the Prince of Egypt is the.

And he grows up in this luxury, but but one day he goes out to his people.

And notice the text says twice here, his people.

Moses, I think what this story is, is Moses making the choice of his identity.

He is saying, I am a Hebrew.

He doesn't have to.

He could say, I'm an Egyptian.

When he runs away to Midian later in the story, he will be called an Egyptian by the people that live in Midian.

He presents as an Egyptian.

You know, he look, he's, you know, all the old paintings on the tombs, they do the same dance.

Don't you know?

He walks like an Egyptian, so that was the point of that.

Not a lot of Bengals fans out here.

So he opts into identifying with his people.

He is, he has his story now by identifying with his people.

Now there's this is a familiar story of the prince who leaves the palace and then encounters suffering, and then finds himself compelled to do something about that suffering.

Like if I were to say, if you were in a world religions class, and I would say, I'm going to tell you a story this morning of a prince who leaves the palace and encounters suffering.

What who would you think I was talking about?

Buddha.

Buddha.

Yeah, exactly.

This is a this is there's something pretty classic about that story.

You know, it's got a, it's, it's got a lot of power.

And I think in this story in particular, one of the reasons for that is because Moses is particularly positioned.

He's uniquely positioned to be able to identify the suffering of the Hebrews.

And that's because he wasn't raised as one.

He was not raised in slavery, he was raised in luxury.

And so when he goes out, this is why the power of the prince leaving the palace has such has, this is why that story has so much power, because there's such a distance.

You know, uh growing up in poverty and hardship and difficulty, there's not that opportunity to create this moment where you see, oh, this is not the way things should be.

But Moses has that moment where he says, this is terrible suffering.

This is a terrible life.

There's such a huge distance between his life in the palace and the lives of the Hebrew people.

So he's positioned because he grew up in luxury, but he's also positioned to bear witness to and see the injustice of the oppression of the Hebrew people because he himself is a Hebrew.

And so he doesn't get to look at it like the other Egyptians do.

The other Egyptians look at it and they see that is a life of suffering, which makes sense because Hebrews have lives of suffering.

I'm an Egyptian.

I don't have lives of suffering.

So imagine, let's run a thought experiment.

You're driving your car, and you stop at Federal in the 38th, and someone runs up to clean your windshield.

So you're getting your windshield cleaned, and you think, and they're holding their child, for example.

And you might think to yourself, that's a tough day.

You know, I it's tough enough to get to like how hard was it to get your kid dressed this morning?

You know, it's hard when you uh when there's uh a spouse is sick and you one of you needs to bring the child to work.

Okay, so now you see someone coming up and they're carrying their child and they're they're coming up to wash your windshield.

And what we might think is something like, oh man, it's tough to be Venezuelan.

That's kind of what it's like, right?

It's kind of what it's like if you're Venezuelan in in the United States right now.

And then we have policy conversations.

Now you're parked in your car and you're Venezuelan.

You know, and somebody runs up to clean your windshield.

Now it's different, isn't it?

That's me.

I remember that stage.

That's my people.

That's my suffering.

So Moses is uniquely positioned to bear witness to the suffering of the Hebrew people.

And he does.

The prince that leaves the palace like Siddhartha or Simba.

Or the funny example that I thought of was the guy that started Tom's shoes.

That's that story, it's the same story.

And he sees a particular instance in which he is able to intervene.

And what the instance is, is an Egyptian is beating a Hebrew, one of his people.

Likely this stood out because he was beating the man extremely, perhaps beating the man to death.

And so Moses seeing, you being uniquely positioned to see this injustice, he intervenes.

But notice it is an anxious intervention.

He looked this way and that, and seeing no one, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.

So this is Moses.

And then he apparently he's like Jason Bourne or something.

And strikes down the Egyptian and hides him in the sand.

So he accomplishes this deliverance, but he does it in such a way where it can't be public.

It it's a secret deliverance.

You know, Moses is, in a sense, like his heart is in the right place, we could say.

He sees this terrible injustice, and there's a man who's about to be killed, and he intervenes and he prevent he prevents that man being killed.

This is an act of rescue.

This is a good act of justice.

This is the right thing to do that Moses does.

But he's positioned in such a way where it's extremely vulnerable and it's basically ineffective.

It doesn't really, it doesn't really work.

And we'll see why it doesn't, we'll see why it doesn't really work.

And the reason why it doesn't really work is because it does not accomplish the deliverance of the Hebrew people.

Moses desires to deliver his people.

In making this move, he positions himself as being a Hebrew.

He stakes his claim as to who his people are.

They are not the Egyptians.

He is with the Hebrew people, the people of God.

That is the source of Moses' identity.

And he acts that out, but he's not positioned in a way where his identity can be effective or useful.

Moses has some has some growing to do.

So we see that we see the sort of ineffectiveness is built into the way that he does it, the sort of clandestine way that he does it.

It can work kind of on this local level in the immediate situation, but it accomplishes nothing beyond that.

Moses is limited in this at this point.

Now, why do I think it's why do I think it's fine that Moses murdered?

It's not just like a, I think I like it, you know?

But also when we read the Bible, like if you were to when when we read when we read the Bible, we're um we've almost gone, we've almost swung too far.

We there was a because like we've all been taught, like, you shouldn't just read these people as heroes.

They're they're broken people, just like the rest of us.

And so we're like hunting for ways in which they're not heroic.

But Moses is also like pretty good.

You know?

Like we should, we he's not like uh, it's not just like a collection of terrible things that a guy did.

That's not the story of Moses.

So we need to uh I'm hoping to sort of counter this sort of move in in contemporary Bible reading to not just like a hunt for the uh sins and warts of our of our fathers.

Um yeah, our culture is a our culture is in a moment of hunt hunting for the sins of our fathers.

That maybe we'll let's not carry that into our Bible reading.

Stephen, the first martyr, when he is about to be martyred, he gives uh a speech and it's like one of the longest chapters.

And I've always thought if I memorize Stephen's speech, then I would just like know the story of the Bible.

Because he just re just recounts the story of the Bible.

And the point of the of Stephen's speech is every prophet that has been sent to you, you've rejected.

Therefore, your rejection of this prophet is not evidence against the prophet.

Your rejection of Jesus is evidence that he's the real thing.

So that's quite a point that he makes.

It's a pretty offensive point, and he is martyred because of it.

But in the midst of that, he tells this story.

He tells the story of Moses, and he says, in Acts 7, 24 through 25, he says, and seeing one of them being wronged, seeing the Hebrew being wronged, he defended the oppressed man and avenged him by striking down the Egyptian.

That's a positive statement of what took place here.

Like, and then he goes on, he supposed that his brothers would understand that God was giving them salvation by his hand, but they did not understand.

I almost think we read the story of Moses like we're the like we're the Hebrews that didn't understand.

Or like, see, what he wasn't, this wasn't an act of deliverance.

This is just the sinner Moses, and God uses sinners.

Uh Moses, you know, Moses was a murderer, Noah was a drunk.

You've maybe heard those things.

I think neither of those are true, by the way.

Um, so we've just got a strange trend in Bible reading.

Stephen gives an example of this.

So he shows us, and this is inspired of word, this is the Bible, this is given to us by the Holy Spirit.

So this is true of what is happening in Moses' heart, that he had this self-concept of uh I can be the deliverer of these people.

And he took that as a responsibility.

And so when he saw this injustice taking place, and he saw a murder that he could, an unjust murder that he could prevent, he intervenes and he delivers the Hebrew man.

But it's ineffective as an act of deliverance because it is rejected by the Hebrew people.

So as we continue on in the story, Moses encounters a similar incident.

People fighting, but this time it's two Hebrews fighting.

Nexus 2.13, it says, When he went out the next day, behold, two Hebrews were struggling together.

And he said to the man in the wrong, Why do you strike your companion?

So Moses encounters these two men, they're fighting, and one of them is in the wrong.

Moses is able to tell.

You know, there's one of them is wrongfully fighting the other one.

He says, Why do you strike your companion?

See, Moses has this concept that there's something about us all being Hebrews.

There's something about us being brothers.

That we that implies we ought to treat each other a certain way.

And we shouldn't wrong each other.

And so why are you, why are you, it's basically like, why are you acting like an Egyptian to him?

Don't you understand who you don't you understand who you are?

And the Hebrew responds with basically something like, Am I my brother's keeper?

But more pointedly at Moses.

He says in verse 14, just listen to the irony of this man's response to Moses.

He answered, Who made you a prince and a judge over us?

Who made you a prince and a judge over us?

A Hebrew says to Moses.

Then Moses was afraid and thought, surely the thing is known.

This is one of those statements that's just, yeah, the irony is so thick.

And then there's also this truth to it, right?

Who made you a prince and a judge over us?

All right, there are several things, several things in this passage where it's like, which what is being referred to here?

He is a prince of Egypt.

Is that what he's talking about?

And is it that he's not the prince of the Hebrews?

That the Hebrews understand that the prince of Egypt is not truly the prince over them?

Is he saying you're just an Egyptian, so you have nothing to say to us Hebrew people?

But then there's this other irony of is he saying, like, like, who made you like king of the Hebrews?

You get to walk down from your palace and think you know how things work here?

You know, he's a middle kid.

He's got no pl he's got no place, he's got no country, Moses has now.

And then, of course, the the irony that will develop, which is who is it that will make Moses, judge and prince of the Hebrews, God?

The answer that Moses will be able to give, and that he will be instructed to give later when they are asked, when he's like, but what if they ask who sent me?

Then it will say things like, Tell them I am sent you.

And and that'll see if that does the trick.

And then here's a couple of magic tricks that you can use on the way.

So what we're seeing is that the ineffectiveness of what Moses has done is something like he's he's not in a position to be able to effectively care for and tend to or attune to or advocate for the Hebrew people.

And part of that is the Hebrew people's wrong rejection of him.

In their injustice, they reject the deliverer who is sent to them.

Now, that is the point of Stephen's speech.

That the very one who is sent to save is the one who is rejected.

This is the story.

And isn't that so often the case?

I mean, have you ever like had someone who you've really tried to help?

Often, the first step is your rejection.

Have you ever had someone try and really help you?

Have you noticed that uh oftentimes the first part of that is you reject them?

You know, this is an ordinary pattern of what takes place.

It's just taking place at this national scale.

So Moses recognizes surely the thing is known.

Another thing worth mentioning is how is it that the thing would be known?

Who would share that Moses killed the Egyptian?

Yeah, the the slave that he saved.

The one that he saved.

Don't you see the Jesus parallels?

They're just all over the place.

Like, why is it that we have this secret messianic stage where Jesus is saying over and over again, don't tell anybody that I healed you.

You know, because he's anticipating that even in the goodness that he's bringing, it will receive an immediate rejection by the people that he's trying to help.

And he knows that time will come, but he's preserving himself for that time.

Moses sees the same thing.

It's he is rejected by the ones that he came to save.

So he sees, and he's he's not positioned to be able to, in a sense, withstand the opposition from the Hebrews and the opposition from the Egyptians.

So now he's a man with no country.

He had cut himself off from the Egyptians by murdering the Egyptian and siding with the Hebrews, but he's been rejected by the ones that he sided with.

So now Moses gets squeezed out into exile.

And he's actually pursued by Pharaoh.

So Exodus 3.15, when Pharaoh heard of it, which means he must have been told by the Hebrews.

So when Pharaoh heard of it, he sought to kill Moses.

But Moses fled from Pharaoh and stayed in the land of Midian, and he sat down by a well.

If you sit down by a well, if you're a patriarch, you sit down by a well, you're about to get married.

Congratulations.

This desire to deliver the oppressed people, but it's just in this seed form right now.

And God knows that if I'm going to raise up this deliverer, I need to grow him and develop him.

And I need to, I need to take him into a place of exile.

Gosh, God seems to always do this with his people.

And typically, what he does, he's like, I gotta make I gotta make this guy a shepherd for like 40 years.

I've gotta make this guy wander around things and try and keep them in line for like 40 years before I put him over this people.

He gives Jacob 12 sons.

And Jacob's 12 sons are a nightmare.

They are a disaster.

But before he gave Jacob those 12 sons to tend to and to try and keep together, he made him a shepherd under a terrible master, Laban, for at least 14 years, longer than that.

We see who is David, where is he pulled from?

He's a shepherd, he's the one who is out shepherding the flock.

He's anointed as king, and then when he becomes king, what is Dav, what before he becomes king, after he's been anointed, he's got this self-consciousness that I will be king.

And then what's it and then he's brought into the palace to play music, and then what happens once he's brought into the palace?

He's driven into exile by the people that he's meant to rule over.

Driven out to the boundary, to the this border.

I read this wonderful quote, and I can't remember where I found it.

Hopefully one of you will remember and be able to remind me of the book.

But it says, the Lord uses our strengths, our strengths, the Lord uses our strengths to get us in over our head, so that we might learn to depend upon him in our weakness.

The Lord uses our strengths to get us in over our head, so that we might learn to depend upon him in our weakness.

And then when you've become the type of person who can depend upon God in your weakness, oh, now you're useful.

Now you're useful to God.

Because this is where God works, where God does the work.

Is in your dependence upon him in your weakness.

And he's taking Moses to a place like that, a place of exile.

And exile is always where there's building up in Scripture.

It's it's weird.

I don't totally get that yet, to be honest.

But I mean, Jacob is another great example.

He's driven into exile under Laban, becomes extremely rich and wealthy.

Abraham driven into exile into Egypt, comes out extremely rich and prosperous.

David driven into exile, an army builds up around him.

You know, there's there's something about the church driven into exile after Stephen's martyrdom, and then builds up and scatters from Judea to Samaria to the ends of the earth.

There's something about being driven into the place of radical dependence upon God, where it God is finally like, okay, now I can grow you.

Now I now you can be now you can be grown and matured and become the type of person who is useful to me.

And that's what's happening to Moses here.

So Moses is driven into exile, sits down by a well.

Oh, wells, that'd be a good Christian dating app name.

Something like that.

Exodus 3, 16 to 17.

Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters.

One was dopey, one was smart.

And they came and drew water and filled the troughs to water their father's flock.

Like, why I do just kind of want you to notice like, why are certain strange things and stories intuitive to us?

It's because look at where we get our stories.

Like, this is the story.

This is the story.

They came to draw water and filled the troughs to water their father's flock.

The shepherds came and drove them away.

But Moses stood up and saved them and watered the flock.

Okay, it this is the third instance of oppression.

We if you're gonna just like characterize someone in a story, you need them to save like one puppy.

And and or just like be nice to a dog, and it's like, yep, I'll go, I'll go with this guy for the rest of the movie.

We've got three instances back to back of when Moses sees oppression, he's like, uh, all right, not on my watch.

You know, he can't, he's got no loyalty to this, but he he intervenes.

And he's in a land where it's like, this is risky.

He's got no backup here.

But he can't help himself.

Like, he Moses is a good man.

He's a good man.

And he saves these, the seven daughters who had come to water their, who had come to water their flock.

Now just notice what happens here.

Moses is oppressed by Pharaoh, rescued through the waters, pursued by Pharaoh into the wilderness.

In the wilderness, he gives people water.

This is Moses is being brought through exactly what he will bring the Hebrew people through.

He is being prepared by God to bring the Hebrew people through this very thing that God has done for him.

So that when they're pressed up against the waters, he might be like, Yeah, I've kind of been pressed up against the waters before.

God's pretty good at getting us out of things like this.

When they're pursued by Pharaoh, I've been pursued by Pharaoh before, God's gotten me through that as well.

When he's seen oppression, he says, Yeah, I've been able to stand up for that, and God has worked as a deliverer.

He's becoming, he's he's being formed by God to be a man who can trust the Lord, who's being pressed up against his own weakness and able to see the Lord's deliverance.

Now, here in exile in the land of Midian, it's not like the rejection that he experienced from the Hebrew people.

He's actually received, and his deliverance is commended to him.

3.18 through 19.

So when they came home to their father Ruel, who is the same guy as Jethro, one of those is probably a priestly title.

When they came home to their father Ruel, he said, How is it that you have come home so soon today?

You know, they pro they it was probably the type of thing where they would have to go, they would see these other shepherds watering, they knew that they wouldn't let them close, so they would have to hang back, and it might take all day to wait to be able to get the water for their flocks, unless they put themselves in a particularly dangerous situation.

So they said, an Egyptian, notice, Moses looks Egyptian.

An Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds and even drew water for us and watered the flock.

Now Ruel, this polytheist priest, sees this the goodness of this deliverance, and his response is he said to his daughters, Then where is he?

Why have you left the man?

Call him, that he may eat bread.

This is a that's that sounds like a friend.

He stood up for you guys and allowed you the flocks to be watered, and he drew, he drove away those other shepherds that had just been oppressing you, and it'd just been this thorn in our side.

This act of deliverance to those outside are recognized.

Isn't this the pattern that we see of the of the story of the gospel spreading?

I mean, you can see it's like, why is it that the the Hebrew people were the ones that did not understand the deliverance of Christ, but the Gentiles were just in.

And so Paul's like, all right, I'm going to the Gentiles.

You know, it's that same sort of pattern, I think, that's happening here that we're that we're being shown.

So uh Moses is brought in, and in 21 through 22 it says, And Moses was content to dwell with the man, and he gave Moses his daughter Zipporah.

She gave birth to a son, and he called his name Gershem, for he said, I have been a sojourner in a foreign land.

Moses is pushed into exile, but in being pushed into exile, Moses is being built up, and he's being brought through the very process that he will then be tasked to bring the Hebrew people through.

He is being made the deliverer.

Now, Moses, his own story, he might not have grasped that.

In fact, it probably would have felt like just the opposite of that.

It would have felt in the midst of it like everything is going wrong.

When I tried to deliver the people of God, I was rejected by them.

And then I was driven out here into exile, and it's great that these people welcomed me in.

But he names his son sojourner.

Because I have been a sojourner in a foreign land.

And it's another one of those moments in this text where it's like, what's he referring to?

Is it because he's actually Hebrew but was raised Egyptian?

Is it because he was rejected by the Hebrew people?

Is it because he's now in the land of Midian and he's not back home in Egypt?

What is it that him as a sojourner, what is what is Moses reflecting on or understanding about himself in this story?

I think that the naming of his son is actually like this key insight into what how Moses is living here.

And why it is that in the midst of all this hardship and difficulty and his rejection, even when he's doing good things, in the midst of this, Moses is able to become the man who will be the deliverer.

In Hebrews 11, 16, it describes the patriarchs, and it describes them not having seen the fulfillment of their promise, of the promise that was given to them by God.

But it says, But as it is, they desire a better country.

That is a heavenly one.

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

Moses is of the ones who desires a better country, a heavenly one.

Moses is the one who is able to live by faith in his sojournings, because he understands that this life is a life of exile.

But there is a better country coming.

Later on in that very same text in Hebrews, Moses' story is described.

Listen to how this instance is described of him.

In Hebrews 11, 24 through 27, it says, By faith, Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.

What was it that happened when Moses went out that day and looked upon the suffering of the Hebrews, his people?

And he intervened on their behalf, killing the Egyptian and therefore solidifying himself with his own people.

It meant I'll never walk back into that palace.

Why did he do that?

Verse 26.

He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward.

By faith he left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible.

Our lives have these periods of exile.

You may think something like I did everything right in this last job and I still got fired.

I maneuvered everything from all that I'd learned in all my past relationships.

I did everything right for this relationship to work and it ended.

And you find yourself pushed into this exile.

And so here's one option.

You could just become cynical.

And you could even call it shrewd and wise, world-wise.

I know how things really work, you could say to yourself when you feel scared.

Say, it doesn't matter what you do out here.

There's no real way of helping anything.

There's no real way of addressing any of the injustice that you see.

It can't be done.

It can't be rectified.

This is just the way it is.

Or you can remember stories.

You can remember Moses' story and think, you know, he was rejected.

And he didn't turn towards cynicism, towards sin, towards his own indulgence.

But by faith he moved forward.

And in that rejection, God made him the type of man who was able to deliver.

God made him one who was able to come to the Hebrews to be their rescuer.

It was costly the whole time.

But he was able to endure.

And he understood that this endurance would be fruitful because it was based in a promise from the one who is invisible, the one that you can't see, had made a promise that there will be a better kingdom.

And that kingdom is worth pursuing.

So you could remember a story like that.

You could be strengthened and you could find that endurance.

And you could consider perhaps the palace that I could walk back into of my own comfort.

Perhaps the reproaches of Christ are better than that, because there's a better thing coming.

That's different than just moralism.

It's not less than it, because it includes not being seduced by sin and the temptations of this world.

But it's more than that because it it lifts your eyes to see that God is at work in your life and in you, that in your faithfulness to him, he develops you into the type of person who is able to trust him in your weakness.

And so consider this: Moses, having been brought through a story like this.

The Egyptians, I think I've said something like this already, but I want to end here.

The Egyptians get to the Red Sea, and Moses says, I've been brought through waters.

They're walking through the waters and they're heading into the wilderness.

And an Egyptian runs up, or a Hebrew runs up to him and says, Hey, where are we headed?

It looks like you're leading us towards, if I check my maps and the stars are in the right place, you're leading us towards nothing.

A wilderness that cannot support us in any way.

And I've checked in with my friends, and they agree.

And Moses would be able to say, the Lord has led me into exile before.

And he was faithful to me there.

You can't see it from here.

I can't see it from here.

But the Lord has been faithful to me, even in this place of uttermost weakness.

And he will be faithful to us again.

Trust in the Lord.

He will deliver us.

Now, how do you become someone who could say something like that?

Well, this is how.

This is how.

Now, Moses being brought.

So I want this to be an encouragement for you.

For you to get a new way of seeing the stories of Scripture and seeing how they become an encouragement for your heart.

It's showing us how God works in these things.

So you're you are in a place of exile in some place in your life, maybe the whole of it right now.

You might be being made useful.

You might be learning how to depend upon the Lord.

And if you if you learn to depend upon the Lord in your weakness, oh man.

The wonders you might see.

Are there any questions today?

Do we know how Moses developed the understanding that he was Hebrew?

It seems in a lot of ways like he would have known himself only as an Egyptian, which feels confusing.

Yeah, imagine how he felt.

There's the the uh it seems as though his family stayed close to him.

So he was, of course, nursed by his mother, his his birth mother, and so she stayed close and probably remained a servant in Pharaoh's house.

And Miriam crosses the Red Sea with him, and she's the one who sings after Moses brings them across the Red Sea, and so she was probably as his sister was close with Moses, so she grew up with him as a Hebrew.

Uh so there's the sense in which he was he was always in close proximity to the Hebrew people throughout throughout his life.

And his name is Moses, and that's a Hebrew name for drawn out, the one who was drawn out of the waters.

And so in his name himself, God sort of placed his story upon him and marked him as a Hebrew person.

So the self-consciousness of being a Hebrew person would have been given to Moses, and we see that, we see that throughout the text.

Now I'll twist this into some sort of application.

You have a self-consciousness of identity.

And our self-consciousness is something like this citizens of a heavenly kingdom.

Citizens of a heavenly kingdom.

So what sort of little exiles will we walk into if we are citizens of that?

Last night, Megan and I were invited to dinner by our neighbors.

And they're this wonderful older couple that hopefully won't listen to the sermon.

And I'm sure I'm I and they're not Christians, but their nephew is a Christian.

He's uh um studying at Denver Seminary, who may listen to this.

Hello.

And uh they um uh it was it was so wonderful, and it was such a sweet night, and they were they were wonderful to invite us in.

And it was one of those things like, hey, are you guys are into Christian stuff?

So we'd love this younger neighbor couple to meet our younger nephew couple, and you guys can talk about Christian stuff the whole time.

Little did they know, when Christians get together and talk about Christian stuff with non-Christians, we are a very uncomfortable people.

And so this it's not like we're both golfers or something.

Like we think things like there's only one way to God, and if you don't believe in Jesus, you'll burn in hell for eternity.

And they know we think those sorts of things.

And so this this conversation that this is coming right to the citizens of a heavenly kingdom point.

I hope.

This conversation had a There's opportunities in conversations like that where there's just like these little moments, and he would say things like, Isn't religion just like we didn't used to know a lot of things that science shows us now?

And now we do know those things, so we don't really need religion anymore.

And there's this moment in that conversation where it's like, what kingdom am I gonna be a citizen of?

Because I don't I can I be the citizen of pleasant dinner party?

Or am I gonna be a citizen of heaven?

And so uh it was like, well, the scientific revolution uh takes place only in the West in Christian thinking countries.

You know, you you do not that you don't do a total song and dance, but you you you maintain your allegiance, and you advocate for the name of Christ, and you s you expose yourself and say things in such a way where it's like, yeah, I really think this.

I'm really a citizen of that kingdom.

And then you get thrust into exile.

We're talking these minor little exiles, right?

But you know the feeling.

You get thrust into these little exiles, and the hope is God works here.

Because you're putting your friend into an exile, too.

You're exiling them from their home thought space.

You say, here we go, off into the wilderness.

But I'm a citizen of a heavenly kingdom, and that's where my allegiance will show.

And hopefully, it might be rejected by you, but it just might accomplish your deliverance.

So you see how these stories work, even at just like a dinner with neighbors?

So, where's your citizenship?

Moses understood his citizenship was with God.

Where is yours?

Where's your citizenship?

What is the reproaches of Christ worth?

God uses our exiles.

All right.

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.

So our Lord Jesus Christ took the bread, and he broke it, and he said, This is my body which is broken for you.

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

His body and the blood were broken and poured out, because he came to a people who would reject him.

And in coming to a people who would reject him, he was being rejected by the very people he came to deliver.

Jesus is the one who is truly exiled.

He is the one who truly left the palace to identify with the ones who would reject him.

And in being rejected by them, he would accomplish our deliverance.

And so he invites us in.

He says, Take and eat, come to my table, that we will eat as friends, enjoy the new covenant, which is that he will be our God, we will be his people, he has delivered us.

The sins that we have sinned against him, the rejection that we have shown towards him, he has taken the punishment for.

And so we come to him and he invites us and calls us a holy priesthood, citizens of a heavenly kingdom.

We have no right to be citizens of a heavenly kingdom, but Christ gives it to us freely.

He has laid himself down on our behalf.

Let us be inspired.

Let the Spirit work in our hearts to give us the same courage, that we might move into exile for others in the same way as He did for us.

Holy Father, we lift up this meal to you.

We thank you for inviting us into it.

We pray that you would work in our hearts to that we might, like Moses, consider the all the glory of Egypt not worth holding on to, but that the reproaches of Christ are better than the glory of Egypt.

And we might trust you in the exiles that you send us into, that this is a place of fruitfulness, that you do not abandon us to these places, Lord, but that you actually build us up in these places, and that we might learn to live as citizens of a heavenly kingdom.

Lord, we lift this up in Jesus' name.

Amen.