Moses

Morning, church.

Our passage this morning is Exodus 2, verse 1 through 10.

Exodus 2:1–10

Now a man from the house of Levi went and took as his wife a Levite woman.

The woman conceived and bore a son, and when she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him three months.

When she could hide him no longer, she took for him a basket made of bulrushes and daubed it with bitumen and pitch.

She put the child in it and placed it among the reeds by the river bank, and his sister stood at a distance to know what would be done to him.

Now the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, while her young woman walked beside the river.

She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her servant woman, and she took it.

When she opened it, she saw the child, and behold, the baby was crying.

She took pity on him and said, This is one of the Hebrew's children.

Then his sister said to Pharaoh's daughter, Shall I go and call you a nurse from the Hebrew woman to nurse the child for you?

And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, Go.

So the girl went and called the child called the child's mother.

And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, Take this child away and nurse him for me, and I will give you your wages.

So the woman took the child and nursed him.

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

She named him Moses, because, she said, I drew him out of the water.

This is the word of the Lord.

You may be seated.

Good morning.

Thanks for joining us this morning.

My name is James Rathman.

I'm the pastor here at Redemption Church Denver.

We are continuing our time in Exodus, which we just started, we're entering our third week.

And uh finally we see that famous moment where Moses is placed in the basket.

So uh before we move into our text for the day, let's pray together.

Holy Father, we thank you for your loving kindness.

We thank you for your providential hand, which guides all things.

Lord, we trust that it is your providence that has brought us here together this morning to worship you.

Lord, we pray that your name would be made great in this neighborhood, Lord, in our hearts this morning.

Lord, that you would be praised and you would be blessed by our worship this morning.

Father, let us see in your text all that you have to show us, and let us gain a better understanding of your providential ruling over our lives.

Lord, we lift this up in Jesus' name.

Amen.

So the Westminster Shorter Catechism is uh uh uh uh it's it's not that short actually, but it's a series of questions and answers that allow us to understand the doctrines of our faith.

And question 11 has to do with the providence of God.

And question 11 says this What are God's works of providence?

And the answer is God's works of providence are his most holy, wise, and powerful, preserving and governing all his creatures and all their actions.

So God's works of providence is most holy and wise, powerful, preserving, that means we all stick around, and governing, that means God is leading it, all of the actions and all of God's creatures.

So all which God's what all which God has made and all that God's creatures do are governed by the Lord.

He is directly involved.

They all happen because of him.

Now that can be a hard thing to prove and kind of a hard thing to uh understand.

In fact, even just hearing it, it it's almost such a grand claim that it might just kind of bounce off of our minds.

Everything is governed by the Lord.

You're arriving here this morning and finding a parking spot somewhere, I don't know how you guys do it, to make it here to church was governed by the Lord.

You're deciding, you know what, I think I might check out that church this morning and wandering in here and getting a cup of coffee, that was governed by the Lord.

Those your initial coming to faith in him, this is all governed by the Lord.

Everything is God's work of providence.

Now, this claim is huge, and once again, how is it that you prove it?

Well, the catechism says that he governs all his creatures and all their actions.

So there's one simple way that I can prove this to you.

Here, I present to you a creature, an action.

See?

Proof.

God governs all his creatures and all their actions.

All right.

I can tell I have not convinced many of you.

Trying to prove the providence of God and participate in it, it's like a fish trying to prove to another fish that he's moving in water.

It's we're saying that it is behind everything that happens.

So, how is it that we come to understand and participate in, to trust in the providence of God?

Well, luckily, God knows how to attune himself to our frame.

And so God shows us his providential working in our lives.

And he does this, we see throughout the scriptures, and you'll recognize this once you start to see the pattern in your own life.

The way that God attunes himself to us is he shows us things, and we would say that was very unlikely.

That situation that I was in was not a situation I could have gotten myself out of.

It is almost impossible to have imagined this working out, and yet somehow it did.

And so God shows us these things where He makes clear to our frame by showing us instances in our lives and instances throughout the scriptures where we would say, that is wonderful, and it seems like that was impossible.

That's why throughout the scriptures we see the miracles of God described in this way.

They're described as signs and wonders.

So a sign that means you see something and it's meaningful.

We're taught that there is no real meaning in the world.

This is all happenstance and chance, and these are random patterns that happen to take place.

The only meaning that's actually there is just our mind's own invention to cope with the randomness of life.

But the scriptures teach us that there is real meaning in the world.

And so when we see the signs of God, a sign signifies something.

That's why miracles are described as signs.

So we see God's working and we say, that is meaningful.

There is meaning here.

And the work of God in his miracles is also shown is also described to us as wonders.

Now, a wonder, this is something that's particularly attuned to the human frame, where we look at we look at something that has taken place and we say, that is wonderful.

Now that's something uniquely human.

Humans are the only ones that have the ability to do that.

To look at an event in existence and say, that is wonderful.

And in seeing God's wonderful working in the world, what it does is it stirs in our hearts and we say, look, look at how, look, this event was meaningful and it is a wonderful event, and that stirs our hearts, and we say, This is guided by the providential hand of the Lord.

The only explanation for this is that God has done it.

And if God can do this, then perhaps he is all powerful.

He is wise.

He is the one who is powerfully preserving his people.

Now, one of the ways that God shows us his signs and wonders is he stacks the odds against himself.

Now, we spent the past several years working through Genesis.

And in the way that I'd like to describe Genesis is there's a promise that the seed of the woman will crush the serpent, and then we trace that promise throughout the story of Genesis.

And Genesis then it's almost like it can be read like an action movie.

Action movies are action movies because there's close calls.

If there's no close calls, it is not an action movie.

So an action movie is they almost didn't escape, up, but then they escaped.

Now it's a movie worth watching.

If it's a if there's no close calls, if it's just like Tom Cruise just like if Tom Cruise doesn't hover over the floor of the uh, where was he?

Of the vault, thank you.

That's why you guys are here.

If Tom Cruise doesn't hover over the floor of the vault, and if instead he's just able to walk in and be like, oh, the other half of the knock list.

Great.

And then he walks out and there's no close calls.

Then nothing wonderful happened.

We didn't see anything interesting.

So throughout Genesis, we see this pattern.

So what does God do?

He gives this promise of who the seed will come from.

He continues to give this promise.

And who does he give it to?

He gives it to Abram and Sarai.

Now, he gives it to Abram and Sarai that they will have a child.

They're too old.

God could have very easily given it to a newlywed couple.

And we would have said, okay, I guess this is just ordinary having a child.

But instead, God wants to draw our attention to his work and put it in a place that is, that we would say, this is incredibly unlikely.

And so he gives it to a couple that is too old and promises them a child.

And then he makes them wait.

And then finally they have a child.

And then once they have that child, Isaac, God says, You need to sacrifice him to me.

Okay, well, we get another close call.

Right?

When Isaac is about to be sacrificed, God himself provides a substitute for Isaac, right at the instant.

Something wonderful is happening here.

It seems like there's a sign, like our attention is being drawn to it.

When Isaac needs a wife, a servant is sent, and the servant says, If I meet her at just this well, and she says just this right thing, then I know I'm talking to the right woman.

And what do you know?

A woman shows up and meets him at just this well and says just the right thing.

That was a close call.

And then he gets the wife.

When the promise is to be passed on to Isaac's son, the promise is instead of being given to the older, is given to the younger.

And so Jacob receives the promise.

And then by the skin of his teeth and even some deceit, God works it so that Jacob receives the promise.

It seems like God is guiding this.

There's all these impossible circumstances, and God is providentially guiding his hand through this.

And so do you see, even when God determines that his people will be rescued from the famine, he starts by burying the rescuer in a pit, and then having him become enslaved, and then having him falsely imprisoned.

He's just constantly stacking the odds against himself so that people like us look and see nobody could have pulled this off.

There are only two explanations for this: a randomness and an odds that would make me absurd for thinking this was just random, or someone's providential hand is guiding these stories.

And this morning we see a story of providence like the rest of these, where we are given an option.

When we hear the story of Moses being placed in the basket and who it is that finds him and how he's reunited with his mother, we might think, wow, that's an interesting happenstance.

Or we might think, we are being shown that God providentially guides and cares for his people.

Today's story is actually more related to even an earlier story in Genesis than the ones I just recounted.

It's more closely related to the story of Noah.

And this is something that God does often, where when he is going to work, he narrows the odds down to just a point.

So when he says that he will destroy the whole world, there's this promise that he had given to Eve.

There's this promise that a seed would come which would destroy the serpent, that there would be a rescuer.

And so the whole world gets narrowed down to one family, to Noah and his family.

And during the flood, he is in the ark and he is brought through the terror of the waters, down to one.

The odds are stacked against.

So we might say, Glad that man sought to build a boat.

That way we all get to be here this morning.

Or we might say, the providential hand of God is working.

And that happens this morning, where once again, cast upon the waters, the hope of Israel rests in this most dangerous and most vulnerable place, in a place where he was helpless and yet he was rescued.

And so we could say of that rescue, it is just happenstance, or we could say, God is in control.

He's trustworthy and good.

Our lives can be cast upon him.

So let's look at this story this morning and hopefully gain a deeper understanding of the providence of God.

Exodus 2, 1 through 2 says, Now a man from the house of Levi went and took as his wife a Levite woman.

The woman conceived and bore a son, and when she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him three months.

Alright, so finally we get Moses onto the scene.

And we get an introduction with a bit of a light genealogy.

Moses is born of the Levites.

You may remember from our time in Genesis that the Levites were come from a particularly violent past, and they are not given, although they were old, although Levi was old enough and was in line to receive the promise to be the king, he's passed over.

But the Levites will become the priests of Israel.

And so Moses is born into this people who will be the priests, those who stand between the people and God.

And he's born to a woman, and he's born, of course, a son.

Now, this is the most dangerous thing to be in Egypt, is the son of a Hebrew.

Because Pharaoh had commanded that all of the Hebrew sons who are newborn would be cast into the Nile and killed.

Don't you see how God stacks the odds against himself to draw our attention to his providence?

Who is the rescuer?

It is the most vulnerable thing you could be.

A baby Hebrew son in Egypt, when the whole nation has been commissioned to toss you into the Nile, that you would be killed.

Now, Moses' parents understand this great risk.

But when they see Moses, and when Moses' mother in particular saw Moses, she saw that he was a fine child.

So she hid him three months.

She takes her own life into her hands as she disobeys the orders of the king.

And why does she do it?

Well, in part because she saw the beauty of Moses.

The text says it she saw Moses and that he was good.

You can hear the call back to Genesis 1, that he looked and he saw that it was good.

The beauty of Moses is what captures her.

And by faith, she was able to see that beauty.

When we are in positions of fear, we can find ourselves being unable to see what is good and what is beautiful around us.

Moses was the most threatening aspect of their lives when he was born.

He was the most dangerous thing you could possibly possess in Egypt.

And so they could have looked at Moses and said, A son, we are cursed.

Look at the terror of what we've received.

Look at the horror that's been cast upon us.

And their fear could have clouded him.

And like I'm sure many other Hebrews did, they would have, in fear of the king of Egypt, cast the sun into the Nile.

But they saw the beauty.

By faith, we are able to see the beauty.

Last week we saw that it was the Hebrew midwives who stood up against the Pharaoh.

And their names were Shifra and Pua.

And those names mean beauty and splendor.

So twice now we've seen the plans of Pharaoh to destroy the sons of the Hebrews thwarted by beauty.

We think that beauty is something that just makes itself evident to us.

That we're able to just look out into the world and see what is good.

But in our sin, we're not.

In fact, in I think in our culture, we think we think things like beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

You know, we are the ones that determine whether something is beautiful or not, but that's not true.

There can be things that are beautiful, and when you look at it and say it's not beautiful, you're wrong.

Because the Lord has made it beautiful.

So by faith, we are able to perceive what is true in the world, what is beautiful in the world.

This does not just happen, it is only by faith that we're able to see what is beautiful.

And that's what happens.

Moses' mother looked at Moses when he was a newborn and was able to see his beauty.

So for three months they hide Moses at great risk to their own lives.

And then verse 3 explains When she could hide him no longer, she took for him a basket made of bull rushes and daubed it with bitumen and pitch.

She put the child in it and placed it among the reeds by the river.

The child at three months old could no longer be hidden.

How many of your kids have been sick in the past week?

Yeah, all of them.

And when your kid is sick, you have conversations in your house like this.

How sick are they?

Are they weighted out sick?

Are they like$50 copay sick?

Are they go to the doctor and the doctor says, yeah, they're just sick, nothing we can do.

And you think, I should have just stayed home, type of sick.

Are they antibiotics sick?

And then if they are antibiotic sick, do you give them an antibiotic?

Because are you destroying their immune system and you need to just wait it out and get it sick?

But you're so tired that you just want to give the kid an antibiotic and you debate with your spouse.

That's what happens.

And you argue and you fight each other.

And since we all became like certified medical experts in 2020, then the fights bring up all of this stuff.

Okay, so the that's just ordinary stakes of a regular sickness in a household.

Can you imagine Moses' father and mother?

We can hide him, we can hide him another week.

We don't have to get rid of him today.

I know we've got these terrible neighbors or whatever, he's starting to cry loudly, or whatever it was, whatever the circumstance was that drew them to conclude we're no longer able to hide him.

Can you imagine the terror, the tension, the argument?

Do you see what we're doing?

What it is that we're talking about?

These are unthinkable decisions that they had to make.

Three months old.

Okay, who's got the closest baby to a three-month-old here?

Danielle.

Come forward.

All right, everybody look at that three-month old.

Is it too late?

Can we wait another week?

So they arrive at the decision that they could hide him no longer.

It is an impossible and unthinkable decision.

They have a plan.

And the plan involves they they are going to make for him a basket out of bulrushes.

And we'll cover it in bitumen and pitch, and we'll lay the child in the basket, and we'll hide him in the reeds of the Nile.

We'll place him in the Nile.

Don't you see?

It's almost like they're it's almost it's almost like they're saying, We'll obey the letter of the law as we try desperately to disobey the spirit of the law that would lead to their son dying.

And so they make something like a terrible compromise and take the child.

And place him in a basket, and they place him among the reeds in the river, and then the mother had to leave him there with the decision that she had made and walk away.

It is a terrible, horrific wait.

It's like those terrible stories of like World War II.

It's like Sophie's choice or something.

It's a horrific, horrific moment.

He's placed in a basket, and the Hebrew word for basket is tava.

The last time that we saw this word tava was in Genesis 6.

And it's the word that's used for ark.

It's the same word for ark and basket.

The scriptures are drawing us to the same conclusion.

The Lord's people are in this most vulnerable place, cast upon the waters.

What is their hope?

Their only hope is that this world is not random chance, but that this world is guided by the providential hand of God.

That hope will be confirmed.

Exodus 2, verse 4.

Exodus 2:4

And his sister, Moses' sister, stood at a distance to know what would be done for him.

Now Moses has two older siblings at this point.

He has an older brother named Aaron.

Aaron is three.

Aaron just missed the decree.

So he gets to survive.

And he has an older sister named Miriam.

And Miriam is described to us in the scriptures as of marrying age.

So she's quite a bit older than Moses at this point.

And Miriam sees Moses placed in the basket, probably helped her mother to create it, and she decides to stay at a distance and watch the basket that Moses is in.

Miriam is my favorite character in this story.

I think partially to be frank, it's for sentimental reasons.

I'm the youngest in my family, and I have two older sisters.

My oldest sister is eight years older than me, and that's like having an aunt.

Or like another, really, it's like having another mom.

And I was thinking a lot about my sister.

Um, yeah, sorry, I didn't mean to get so long pausey.

But uh if you have older sisters, I I just think this makes perfect sense.

It just makes perfect sense to me that Miriam would stay.

So Miriam stays next to next to Moses.

I think she is I think she is the hero of this story.

She watches.

And verse five tells us this what happens next.

Now the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river while her young women walked beside the river.

She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her servant woman, and she took it.

So who shows up but the princess of Egypt shows up to this very river to bathe with her servants, and she sees, for some reason, she sees among the reeds this basket, and she sends one of her servants to get it.

And verse six says, and when she opened it, she saw the child, and behold, the baby was crying.

Who has a crying baby right now?

Hold it up so we can.

Okay, Moses is in the basket.

He's crying.

Three months old, utterly vulnerable.

He is the most dangerous thing you can be, cast upon the waters, and now he is brought into the hands of the family that have given the edict that he must be killed.

But the princess sees him and she took pity on him.

Why does she take pity on him?

Well, we aren't given the reason.

This is one of the Hebrews' children, she says.

If ever there was a shot, to interject myself to the princess, me of the slave class.

Well, now's the time.

Verses seven and eight.

Then his sister said to Pharaoh's daughter, Shall I go and call you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?

And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, Go.

So the girl went and called the child's mother.

If your most recent exposure to the Exodus story is the movie The Prince of Egypt, they skip over this part.

He just like goes on this like kind of wild basket river whitewater ride.

Uh and then just go comes to the princess, and the princess is just like, great.

But do you do you see this?

His mother casts him upon the waters and then receives him back to nurse her own child because Miriam intervenes.

Shall I go get a nurse for you?

Now we're we're the the wet nurse is not uh common any as common anymore, but it was we don't know much about Egyptian wet nurses, as you can imagine.

I should say, I should call for that.

I don't know much about ancient Egyptian wet nurses.

I don't want to speak for everyone, but uh we know a bit about Roman, about the Roman practice, and especially during the imperial age in Rome, it was extremely rare for an upper class woman to nurse her own child.

But it was it was actually typical that they would get a uh a wet nurse for the child.

And so for the princess to receive this child and then to immediately go to, we need to find someone to nurse the child, was would have been pretty ordinary and typical.

And this is, of course, a time where infant mortality was incredibly high.

And so there were many mothers who had recently had children who didn't have those children.

And they were able to nurse the children, and this this was a common thing for a slave woman to do, would be to be a wet nurse for the upper class.

So Miriam initiates and offers the princess the simple means of expressing her pity on the child, and then goes and gets the child's mother.

Can you imagine when Miriam shows back up what Moses' mother is the state that she's in, and Miriam says, I have some news.

You're not gonna believe this.

You need to nurse Moses.

You know, she had thought that there was a last time that she nursed Moses.

That wasn't it.

It doesn't seem meaningful.

Like it like it's almost like it's a sign.

Isn't it wonderful this story?

It gets even better.

So Pharaoh's daughter says to Moses' mother, said to her, Take this child away and nurse him for me, and I will give you your wages.

So the woman took the child and nursed him, cast upon the waters, and then later gets him back and is being paid to nurse him in the very presence of the royal family.

Suddenly, this the most dangerous place you could possibly be, by the providential hand of God, has become a place of safety and provision.

What a wonderful story of happenstance.

What the odds were so small.

But as chance would have it, or the Lord is in it.

I want to think back to the moment.

You know, the the argument, the kitchen table argument of can we hide him any longer?

Is today finally the day that this three-month old?

Is today finally the day where we'll make the basket and we'll put him in it?

Or can we make it another week?

It could have been as simple as he's crying so loudly, and we can't calm him.

We're putting the whole family in danger now.

So we will all die.

Or perhaps we might be spared, perhaps something might happen for Moses.

At that point, there was very small hope.

And yet, because it was that time, even something that felt like their own decision, their own weighty decision, at that time, it was perfect.

The princess, if it had if they had waited a week, who knows if the princess would have been there.

If they had made the decision earlier, perhaps she wouldn't have.

Even dispositionally, for the princess, the time had to be right for her to look and take pity on him.

She does.

You have an option for the way that you interpret your own life.

And you can interpret your life as just random chance.

You can interpret your life as these are just places that you happen to find yourself.

You may say that the situation that you are in is so of your own making that there's no hope for you to get out of it.

You may be in a situation now, and you can't imagine your way out of it.

The amount that would have to come together, the amount that would have to change, to imagine your way out of it puts you at the level of just being absurd.

And to hope there makes you utterly vulnerable.

To hope in that moment, you you feel like you can feel in your own heart that you are being set up, you're setting your own heart up for disappointment.

You're making yourself hurt even more just by hoping.

You're increasing the likelihood of your hurt.

Or the Lord is holy and wise, he's powerful, he preserves and governs all his creatures and all their actions.

We are in his story.

And the Lord makes a habit of saving his people so I can hope in him.

And if I hope in him, I will not be put to shame.

We don't hope because we fear the shame.

If you cynically approach life, you get to not have any shame.

You get to never be disappointed.

If you hope, you're you may look like a fool.

But this is the promise that the scripture gives us.

Those who hope in Christ will not be put to shame.

We won't be.

He will rescue.

Even out of death, he will rescue.

So the child grows older.

Verse 10 When the child grew older, she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son.

She named him Moses.

Because, she said, I drew him out of the water.

There came a time again when the child grew older and he was weaned.

And Moses' mother once again had to part with him.

But it is a different kind of parting.

It is not the parting like last time.

It is a parting with a bit more certainty built into it.

One that says, he will be raised as royalty.

He's adopted by the princess herself.

We don't know the proximity that the mother would have, but we we do have a sense that Miriam stayed close.

Miriam stayed close to Moses, his older sister.

So Pharaoh's daughter names him, and she picks a Hebrew name.

She names him Moses.

I can only hear the Ten Commandments in my mind.

The movie, you know, not the Ten Commandments.

We'll call him Moses.

That's what I hear.

They call him Moses, which is a word that sounds like the Hebrew word to draw out.

She says, I'll call him Moses because I drew him out of the waters.

Interestingly, I one of the commentators I read says that it also sounds like the Hebrew word for sun, excuse me, the Egyptian word for sun.

And so they're related, drawn out.

So there's this double meaning.

He's got this meaning in the Egyptian language, which is spelled with like an I and a picture of a bug and stuff.

And it's and it spells Moses.

And they've got this meaning in the Hebrew language, the one who is drawn out of the waters.

Because Pharaoh's daughter did draw him out of the waters.

Moses will be raised in the house of Pharaoh with a Hebrew name.

And of course, he'll be around Hebrew slaves for his whole life, and they'll know his name.

It seems as though Miriam, his sister, will stay close to Moses.

And no matter what he hears of the Egyptians, he'll have this name.

You know, part of my story is I was cast upon the waters when I was most vulnerable, and then I was drawn out of the waters and rescued.

Now he has two options for how he interprets his own story.

He can think this is mere happenstance.

I'm one lucky guy.

But of course, it doesn't mean anything.

Or he can think this is a sign and a wonder.

The Lord providentially has cared for me.

The Lord will draw me out of the waters.

Miriam will see Moses drawn out of the waters twice in her life.

This first time, when he was just a child, Moses is cast into the waters, surrounded by Egyptians that desire to kill him.

But the Lord draws him out.

The second time that Miriam will see Moses drawn out of the waters is when he is pressed with the nation of Israel, between Egyptians that desire to kill them and the Red Sea.

That is an impossible circumstance.

There's nowhere to go.

But Moses perhaps was able to remember his name.

And the Lord remembered his promises.

And his providential hand saw that the waters would be parted, and they would walk through on dry land.

And when they get to the other side of the sea, and the Egyptians are washed away in their pursuit of them, we get a song.

And it's a beautiful song describing the rescue of God for his people.

And in Exodus 15, verses 20 through 21, it says, Then Miriam, the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, this is also Moses' sister, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women went out after her with tambourines and dancing.

Exodus 15:20–21

We got to get out of here pretty quickly.

Well, Miriam might think something like, I bet we'll need to worship the Lord soon.

You know, I've seen him do wonders for Moses.

Have I told you his birth story?

And Miriam sang to them, Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously.

The horse and rider he has thrown into the sea.

And Miriam leads the women in singing and dancing, and the wonder that once again Moses had been drawn out of the waters.

We're given these stories in Scripture so that we might learn how to interpret our own lives, that we might not reflect back on our lives as happenstance and chance.

But that we might see that all has been guided by the providential hand of the Lord.

That we might learn to trust in the God who saves.

That we might see the circumstances that the believers that have gone before us have found themselves in, and we might see they were.

In places like I'm in, where they could find no way out, where there was no hope of rescue, and the Lord rescued them.

Such is our God.

That's what He's like.

He is our rescuer.

So we learn to be a people who trust the providential hand of the Lord, even in our own lives.

We have something even greater than the Exodus to look to.

We have a love shown to us by the Lord, in which he was willing to give his own son, kind of like Moses' mother, in confidence that he would receive him back, and he would receive him back after he had atoned for the sins of people like us, so that we might trust in him to rescue us even out of problems of our own cause, even out of the consequences of our own actions, we can trust in the providential hand of the Lord.

He's good, wise, and powerful, preserving.

He governs us, his creatures.

We can depend upon him for our salvation.

So I hope at this story this morning your hope in Christ would be increased.

You would learn to interpret your own life as the providential outworking of the Lord.

Are there any questions today?

Great.

See if are bad things in the world, such as suffering, also part of God's providence?

Yes.

Yes.

The um it's an easy that's an easy answer.

But the question is, what, how?

How can that be?

Oh, where does the the causal nature of God end and the causal the causal ability of humanity begin?

And so where does God's responsibility for the sins that happen in the world?

Uh where where is he let off the hook for the sins of the world, and where are we kept on the hook for the sins of the world?

There's a lot of ink that's been spilled on that.

And I think that we we don't have uh helpful frames to be able to reconcile that in any any sort of meaningful way.

But what we can have, what we do clearly have, is the most maximal example imaginable of wickedness in the world, of God saying, this is his doing.

And from that maximal example of wickedness, God demonstrating the heights of his glory and goodness.

And this is in the story of Jesus Christ.

God, incarnate, took on flesh, perfect, sinless, and in his perfection and sinlessness is murdered.

The most wicked act in human history.

God in Acts 2 says that this is what his hand and his plan had accomplished for Jesus.

God's hand and his plan.

I intended for this most terrible thing to happen to Christ, and my hand, that's very, that's very active.

And in that maximal depth of horror, the most wonderful goodness is accomplished.

And so, what can we know about the providence of God in the midst of the suffering and pain that we experience in the world?

We can know that in the midst of it we have hope.

Hope that this will not be the end.

Hope that God's goodness will be absolutely accomplished.

Hope that what is taking place is not random and meaningless, but that God is working in the midst of it.

We know that because of what we've been shown in Jesus Christ.

Moses' mother could know that.

In the midst of this terror, the Lord is working.

He will be victorious.

That is our hope.

Now let's remember the sacrifice of our Lord in our time of communion together.

Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 11, 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.

Paul continues, Whoever therefore eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord.

Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup.

For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself.

That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.

We come to the table this morning, invited to the meal that Christ gave to us.

On the night before Christ was betrayed, the night that Christ was betrayed, he took the bread before his disciples and he broke it.

This big piece of bread.

And he said, This is my body, which is broken for you.

Then he took the cup, and he said, This is the cup of the new covenant in his blood.

He invites us to the same meal this morning.

And as he invites us, he invites us to examine ourselves as we come to the table.

So we invite all of you who've been baptized into Christ, who can examine yourselves.

You don't have to be a member of our church.

You can be a member of any church.

Well, maybe not any.

What brings you to this table is your faith in Christ, that he invites us to share this meal with him.

On the night before he was betrayed, knowing that he would go to this most awful thing, and in it he would bring us life, that that would be our rescue.

So you're invited to this table providentially.

I can say that with confidence, because all things work in God's providence.

Examine yourselves.

Consider how have I neglected the providence of God?

Perhaps what would my life be different if I truly trusted in it?

Take and eat in remembrance of Him.

Holy Father, we pray that you would bless this meal.

That as we are invited into this communion with you, we are sharing in the fruits of your rescue that you have accomplished for us.

Lord, we are utterly vulnerable, cursed to death in our sins, but by your rescue, we have hope.

So Lord, let us live in that and share the joy of it in communion this morning.

Lift this up in Jesus' name.

Amen.