We're going to be in Exodus, Exodus chapter 2.
I don't have my mic on again because you guys don't want to
hear me clear my throat. So pray that that goes away soon
because standing still is not my my strong point.
So trying to stay where the mic picks me up is important.
So we're going to start in chapter 2, verse one.
And a man of the House of Levi went and took as a wife a
daughter of Levi. So the woman conceived and bore
a son. And when she saw that he was a
beautiful child, she hid him three months.
But when she could no longer hide him, she took an arc of
bulrushes for him, Dab dubbed them with asphalt and pitch, put
the child in in it, and laid it in the reeds by the river bank.
And his sister stood far off to know what would have what would
be done to him. Then the daughter of Pharaoh
came down to bathe at the river, and her maidens walked along the
Riverside. And when she saw the ark among
the reeds, she sent her maiden to get it.
And when she opened it, she saw the child.
And behold, the baby was the baby wept.
So she had compassion on him, and said, This is one of the
Hebrew children. Then his sister said to
Pharaoh's daughter, Shall I go and call a nurse for you from
the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for you?
And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, Go.
So the maiden went and called the child's mother.
And then 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 and the child grew
and she brought him up, brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, and
he became her son. So she called his name Moses,
saying, because I drew him out of the water.
So Lord, I just lived up today, Lord, that he'd just be here,
Lord, that you'd be speaking through me, Lord, that you'd be
speaking to me. But Lord, that you'd truly just
give his eyes to see what what you're saying here, Lord, and or
that you would just give me the ability to share what you want
shared Lord, and that you would just guide and direct us Lord,
that you'd be with us as we're just here together as a body
spending time and I pray this in Jesus name, Amen.
So Exodus 2 is I guess I got to start with last week.
I picked on Israel pretty much the whole time about being a, a
people that, you know, the brothers were not they didn't
understand who God was. And I would say as a, as a, a
conglomerate, as a, as a people, that is true.
But in all, in all of those moments in the Bible, there are
always faithful people. You know, if you look at Elijah
when he was frustrated and saying nobody, I'm the only one
God and God said I got 7000 that haven't vowed the need to bail.
You know, there is always a remnant and Moses's parents
would be of that, of that kind. X The verse one says a man of
the House of Levi and his name is Amaram.
That's Moses's dad and a daughter of Levi, which is
Jochebed. And that's it, that's his mom.
And Amaram's name means exalted people and Jochebed means Yahweh
is glory. So you could say the glory of
Yahweh meets the exalted people, right?
And Exodus, you get the names in Exodus 20 or 620.
And it's Amram took for himself Jochebed, his father's sister as
a wife and she bore him Aaron and Moses.
And I always, I love that God doesn't as as you're, as he's
recording the history that he never like.
Well, that's going to be hard to talk about.
So we're not going to say that, you know, so Amram married his
father's sister. So in our world, Amram married
his aunt, but in their world, there are multiple wives and
there are. So that doesn't mean that they
were that close or that she was any older than because in Uganda
you have that where there are kids the same age that are, you
know, my, I think there is in IMP Julie, JB has an uncle that
is five or six years younger than him, right, Because that's
just how, how that goes when you have multiple wives and and that
stuff. And that isn't that isn't God
condoning that, right? That is just that's what was
going on, right. And also to remember that this
is in in six. It says she bore Aaron and
Moses. Well, we know from the rest of
Exodus. She also bore a daughter.
And it's just to point out that when the Bible anywhere you read
about the children of so and so that doesn't mean that that's
all the children they had right? It's the Bible is gives you
gives you everything it gives you is true, but it doesn't mean
it gives us all the information of a family tree in this case,
right. So according to Jewish history,
Moses's parents were leaders and well respected in their
community. There's you know that there's
old and old books and antiquities or old scrolls that
that record who they were and what what is said about them.
But if you look at the impact they had on Israel, I would say
the fruit of their lives back up that they are, that they were a
couple to be respected in the community, right?
When you think about what their what their legacy was, what
their children did, and that's Moses was a prophet and a
lawgiver. He delivered, he was the
deliverer of Israel, but Aaron was the high priest and Miriam
was the prophetess in the and worship leader, right.
So their faithfulness shaped leaders God would use to rescue
his people. And then it says in in verse 2,
it says so the woman conceived and bore a son and when she saw
saw he was a beautiful child, she hid him for three months.
So I imagine there are moms here.
Every mother, I believe, who has ever had a child believes that
theirs is beautiful no matter the condition.
I mean, my mom thought I was beautiful.
And it's funny as that may sound.
I was born missing a chunk of my face and my nose was deformed.
I had a cleft palate. So I was, I did.
I did not look well put together when I was born my my mom's
youngest brother, Uncle Bill, He said I looked like he was 17 at
the time. And I imagine the 20 year old my
mom and the 17 year old little brother.
And I just imagined this moment in the hospital room when he
says, well, he looks like he was in the losing end of the New
York gang fight. She probably wasn't as impressed
by that statement as I chuckle about it, right?
She was. But my mom still claims she
thought it was beautiful, right? So so with that, did every mom
make an ark for their beautiful baby and put them in the river
or was there more to this story? And I would say that the word
beautiful here in the King James, just as we're as I'm as
I'm studying it out. Is there something about that
word And it is in the King James.
It's goodly and it's, it's the same word God uses in creation
when he says it was, it was good or it was very good.
But that being said, the word is used just as many, I mean
hundreds of places in the Old Testament to just mean good,
right? So there's, there's nothing
overly exciting about the word in the Old Testament.
It, it does mean beautiful. It could mean, I mean, it's used
to say excellent, special, favored or fit for purpose.
And now in Jewish history, back to those old scrolls, it says
that Amaran had a dream, right? But if you if you look in the
New Testament, there's there's some more light on it In Hebrews
11/23, it says by faith when he was born.
What are sorry? So by faith, Moses when he was
born was hidden for three months by his parents because they saw
he was a beautiful child and they were not afraid of the
King's commands. And there are two places in the
old in the new tenant in the New Testament that that word is used
and it's it's a stasos. And that word is used twice in
all of the New Testament. And the first time is in
Hebrews. And the second time is in Acts
720. At this time Moses was born and
was well pleasing to God, and he brought brought up in his
father's house, for he was brought up in his father's house
for three months. So that word means well bred,
polite, polished, elegant, fair or beautiful.
So it, it could mean good, it could just mean beautiful.
But I would say by faith that his parents did this thing
right, He was well pleasing to God.
What we can tell, what I can tell you is from the from
reading it, there was something about Moses's birth that his
parents knew he was special somehow.
Maybe it was a dream, maybe, maybe Amram had a dream, or
maybe it was just conviction, right?
Moses's parents by faith hid him.
We know God had spent and, and last week I talked about Rebecca
and Jacob. Or maybe it was a week before.
We know that before Esau and Jacob were born that God talked
to Rebecca. There's there's many places in
the Old and New Testament that talk about God talking to
parents, right? There's Abraham is talked to
about Isaac. Rebecca is talked to about Jacob
and Esau Samson's parents are talked to before he's born.
John the Baptist parents are talked to, right?
Mary and Joseph are both talked to about Jesus and all that to
be said that kind of like with kids being mentioned in the
Bible. Just because it doesn't say God
talked to him doesn't mean God didn't talk to him, right?
And just like today, God speaks to us right there.
There is no, there is no difference in this time of God's
ability to speak to those that are serving him.
Now if you look at Rebecca, she heard the Lord and she went to
work and and last week and the week before I talked about that
is just manipulating and lying and and pushing God's agenda
forward to make it happen. And Jochabed Jochabed went a
different way. She hid him until she could not
and then by faith put him in God's hands, right?
Verse 3 says. But when she could no longer
hide him, she took an ark bull rushes for him, dabbed them with
asphalt pitch and put the child in it and laid it in the reeds
by the riverbank. And his sister stood afar off to
know what would be done with him.
So his mother made an ark to put him in the river.
And I can I can only think that that ark was really well made.
Right. Can you imagine putting your
three month old baby in an ark or in a in a box sealed up and
then going to put it by the river?
And not only not only her three month old baby, but her third
born. And I don't know if you've been
around a lot of families with third borns, but they're an
interesting bunch, right? The parents, the parents have a
different way of raising their their third child, right?
That the baby of the group and there's just something different
about the parents. And it's, it's not a it's not a
rudeness thing. I think parents just they, they
wear down right. We, we, we get, we get beat up,
but they, it's kind of fun when you look at, when you look at
Miriam and Abraham and Moses, they, if you guys ever watch
YouTube or Facebook and you see the, the first, second and third
born or the first born in the middle child and the baby and
you watch those little, they fit that stereotype really well.
And when you watch Miriam and just her interactions and, and
Aaron's as the second born. Now Moses, Moses has a time of
training and after that he comes back to Egypt and he's, he's a
little more stabilized than than a standard first born or third
born. But Miriam and Aaron, they, they
really fit the first and second born.
But we meet Miriam in verse 4 for the first time and she she
is at least four years old here because she is older than Aaron,
who is 3. And it tells us that in Exodus
7/7 that when Moses and Aaron met the Pharaoh for the first
time, they were Moses was 80 and Aaron was 83.
Well, we know Miriam wasn't 2 because she has a conversation.
So she has to be older, which puts her to at least 4.
But then when you when you actually, when we get to the
conversation, it's probably not a four year old.
She had to have intelligence to have the conversation.
I had to have a thought process. So I'd put her between 6:00 and
8:00. Now it doesn't give us that.
That is me kind of trying to put that into where I think she's
at. But I would say between 6:00 and
eight years old, which does fit if, if she's 6 and Aaron's three
and Moses is first born, that's it.
That's, that's a fair spread. But she could be 8.
Some, some commentaries think that she might be 12 years old,
but Miriam stays to see what would happen.
And, and if you think about this as, as the first born, and we do
this as I've done it with my children over the years, is you
forget they're there, right? You're just having a
conversation between you and your wife or between you and
your friends or whatever. And your, your child's there.
Well, they're hearing everything you're talking about.
They're just, they're just there.
They're listening. And Can you imagine the
discussions that Miriam had heard?
You know, how to hide him, how to build an ark, where to place
the ark. Miriam would have been very
interested in what would happen to her, to her baby brother.
Because this is weird, right? How would God work?
Because you, you know that, that his parents speculated because
we speculate, right? We, I, I talk about my plan.
I have all kinds of plans, but then there's what God's plan is.
And I will tell you, when I look back at my plans, they look
nothing like God's plans, right? I mean, I, I make them and they
prepare me for God's plans, but God has much different plan than
me. I mean, my plan is to be in
Uganda, you know, last year and I told you and it was lined up.
We were doing it. I'm going to be in Uganda 3 to 6
months a year. I'm going to work nuclear power
plants or I'm going to pastor a church in Sandpoint.
This was not on any list of things I was going to do, but I
just did the next thing, right? I trusted when we, when, when I
got to this point, it was trust the plan, right?
I don't have to understand the plan, but I do have to trust it.
And Miriam is that and I, and I would tell you that Jochebed,
she's not there and there's some trust in that, right?
It isn't, it isn't the mom stayed to see what would happen.
It is the the daughter stayed to see what would happen.
And there is a great contrast up between Rebecca and Jochebed.
This is still active faith, right?
This is not this is this is not Jochebed, Moses's mom just lying
down and doing nothing. She's she's following, you know,
she has been led to save this child, which I mean, different,
different times different, you know, it seemed like, well,
obviously she wants to save her child, but this is more serious
than you know, you think about China in the up until 2015, you
were allowed to have one child. And so if you had a girl child,
they they would abort it. But if you if, if you didn't
have an abortion, there were story, you know, they'd go out
and kill the child, right? I mean it.
And because it wasn't a boy and a boy is what they wanted.
So this isn't something that is unheard of as far as human
nature and protecting their their own.
I mean, we have the level of abortion that we have in
America, right? But this is a conviction in her
heart. But she is doing what she needs
to do, right? She hit him until she couldn't
hide him. And I always, I always think
about that. Think of COVID, right?
You have busy bodies. I don't know how bad it was in
Idaho, but around the country there were, there were
definitely busy bodies that if, if you were breaking the,
whatever the, the standard was, somebody was going to turn you
in, right? Well, and because maybe they
would look good or whatever that thing is.
Well, you had, I'm sure in, in Goshen, I'm sure you had those
people reporting back to Pharaoh, right?
So when you when he got to the point where he was crying, I
would say about 3 months old, or he's crying loud enough that she
couldn't hide him anymore. That's that's the next plan.
But this is not her lying. This is not her manipulating,
right? This is, this is her.
All Hebrew said is is by faith, right?
They didn't fear Pharaoh's command, but they hid.
Hiding isn't fear. Or even dishonest sometimes it's
the smart thing, right? I mean, if you look at if you
look at Acts and you think of, of Saul, right after he gave his
life to, to Jesus, the scales fell off his eyes and he went
and contended, you know, he went and shared Jesus and then
contended, contended with the Jews.
And I would imagine whenever Saul, the Pharisee that had been
saved contended with the Jews, he was officially the smartest
man in the room, right? I mean, he, he knew his Bible
backwards and forwards or his his Torah and he knew all the
places Jesus was. That's what that with Paul, I
always loved the, the picture of him.
He got the key to the whole Old Testament in one download, right
when the scales fell off his eyes, suddenly, suddenly the
whole Old Testament came alive because Jesus is all over it,
right? And so he's going in and
contending with the Jews. Well then he finds out the the
Jews are seeking to take his life, and so undercover of night
he was lowered over the wall, right?
Acts 923 says now after me. After many days were passed, the
Jews plotted to kill him. But their plot became known to
Saul and they watched the gates day and night to kill him.
Then the disciples took him by night and let him down through
the wall in a large basket. Now if we look at the rest of
Paul, of Saul, who becomes Paul, if we look at the rest of his
life, he was not fearful. He was not, he was not in fear
of his life. But the smart thing he had, he
had had the conversations, he had said the things he needed to
say. Everyone that could be reached
had been reached. So he moved on.
No reason to stay. So Moses, his parents just
obeyed, right? They they obeyed in faith and
they did the next thing. If you look at Abraham, he's a
great picture of trusting the plan, which is all Moses's
family does is just trust the plan.
They trust the planner, right? And Abraham in Genesis 2 or
sorry 22 verse one says Now it came to pass after these things
that God tested Abraham and said to him, Abraham.
And he said, here I am. Then he said, take now your son,
your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of
Merori sorry, and offer him. There is a burnt offering on one
of the mountains of which I shall tell you.
So Abraham arose early in the morning, saddled his donkey and
took two of his young men with him and Isaac his son, and he
split the wood for the burnt offering in a rose and went to
the place of which God had told him.
Abraham obeyed. His obedience wasn't in
understanding, right? If you look at, if you look
back, back to Hebrews again, he had faith in he, he
contemplated, right? He contemplated how God would
work this out. Hebrews 11 says 1117 says by
faith when Abraham or when he was tested offered up Isaac and
he who had received the promise promises offered up his only
begotten Son, of whom it was said in Isaac your seed shall be
called. Concluding that God was able to
raise him up even from the dead from which he also received him
in the figurative sense. And that figurative sense just
means when God told him to go sacrifice his son, he, he saw
his son is already dead right? And I mean he knew what he was
taking him up to the mountain to do.
And as believers, we don't have to know how or what the whole
plan is. Ours is to rely on and trust in
the one our faith is in, not in our ability to understand his
plan. God will give us the information
we need for the moment and Isaiah 50.
This is this is a verse that I think that we should all
memorize in and and just implant in our in our like, I don't have
to know. I don't know.
I don't have to know the latest conspiracy.
I don't have to be on YouTube. I don't have to, I have to
figure out all the things I need to listen to him.
I need to follow him. And Isaiah 50, verse 10, it
says, who among you fears the Lord who obeys the voice of his
servant and that, that who obeys the voice of his servant?
And that's Jesus, right? That's a, that's a reference to
him who walks in darkness and has no light.
Let him trust in the name of the Lord and rely upon his God,
right? So you don't have to know what's
happening. You have to know what the next
thing what he wants, what he wants you to do right.
We need to be obedient to his calling in our life.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own
understanding is Proverbs 35 and sometimes he will give us the
big picture. You know he did that for Joseph
the great. It's it's Genesis 37.
This is Joseph and it's then he dreamed still another dream and
told it to his brothers and said, look, I have dreamed
another dream and this time the sun, the moon and the 11 stars
bow down to me. And that is my mom, my dad and
my and my 11 brothers are going to bow down to me.
Mom, dad and the eleven brothers were not impressed by his dream,
but it absolutely came true. 100% that's exactly what happens
decades later now had any of them known what it was going to
take to get there. They messed it up right and if
you and I guess just so we I tie up all the loose ends.
If you don't know the end of Abraham's long like hike up the
mountain in the verse 12 of Genesis 22 and it says and he
and the Angel of the Lord said, do not lay your hands on the lad
or do anything to him for now. I know that you fear God since
you have not withheld your son, your only son from me.
And just know in that story, at no point was Isaac's life in
danger. God, God knew exactly what the
plan was. He was showing, he was showing
Abraham his heart right? He was showing him that do you
rely on me and my plan and Abraham at the end of it?
That is what Abraham did, right? He, he contemplated, but he, he
was obedient. He was doing the next thing.
So this is like that. You guys get a funny
illustration. It's one that I I look back on
and I think it helped me so much understand God's this do the
next thing. So I was at a youth camp in
Oregon. It was called wild horse back
then I think it's Washington family ranch now, but it's got
it is a impressive piece of property young life got it It
used to be a commune. It has an acre building that is
enclosed. It's, it's got basketball courts
and rock climbing walls and all the things you could possibly
have to have fun at a youth camp.
But they have rock climbing walls and they're, they're 2-3
stories tall and have all they have hard ones and easy ones.
And I at one time thought I could climb rocks and I, I
wasn't, I wasn't bad at it. And I was with a bunch of high
schoolers. I was in my 30s and we're we're
on a break from I think we were doing, I think we were serving.
So we were in the kitchen most of the time.
So this was a break with just us.
And we were going to have a competition who could climb
this, this one, one technical section, who could climb it the
fastest. And we've been we've been
messing around all day doing things.
And at the very top of this wall, there is a really
technical spot that you have to do a particular way.
And I was, I was helping as much as I was going to race them, I
was also helping them. So I was explaining when they
got up there what they wanted, you know, how the best way to
maneuver that. And, and so I am concentrated up
there and the I jump on the wall like I'm the last guy to go.
Everybody else has made it to the top.
I have like 4 or 5 high schoolers that have made it to
the top. I get on the wall, I can't get 5
feet off the wall up the wall. I literally I have, I'm on the
wall and I cannot get myself to the next rock.
Like held in play. Like frustrated.
Like I got on the wall like 3 times and got off the wall and
then we went and washed dishes and I'm, I'm frustrated because
I'm the youth leader that now looks like a complete idiot.
And so there was some humbling that needed to be done.
And then I go back after on our next break, and I'm still
literally my pride's hurt and all that stuff.
And I put the gear on and I climbed up and hit the bell and
it was done. And so what's the point of that
God? God in no uncertain terms said
that I needed. My problem was I was
concentrated on where I was going, not where I was at.
And doesn't mean God won't give you where you're going, but he
doesn't have to. He doesn't have to give you the
intermediate stuff, right? He gives you the next step.
He gives you what is required of you.
Now, Elizabeth Elliott, which you guys get to hear a lot of
quotes from her, but when her husband Jim Elliott died, she
was a missionary in a foreign country with a toddler.
And what do you do and her quote that you guys, if you read
Elizabeth Elliott, I'm sure you've heard it when you don't
know what to do when life is too heavy, when the path ahead is
unclear, simply do the next thing God has put in front of
you and in her list of next things are wash the dishes, rock
the baby, translate the next verse, cook the next meal, pray
the next prayer, take the next step of obedience.
And that's that's what God promises us right And that is
that understand that we serve a living God that wants to speak
to us right. But it isn't about telling us
telling us the end of the story. We know the very end of the
story. How we get there is by doing the
next thing that he puts in front of us.
My job is always to just do the next thing going to Uganda over
the, over the last 15 years, when I first started going 2010,
I knew we were supposed to go to Africa.
So we went when I came back and then God told me that's where
I'm supposed I'm supposed to go to Uganda.
And, and so then I, I started going to Uganda and he called me
to the Ucholi people in Uganda, which is in northern Uganda.
And then, you know, about every six months we had a, we had a
mission trip planned when we first started going, It wasn't
us planning it. It was another, another group.
And every time it was this, this heart, heart wrenching struggle
because it's money, right? Heart wrenching struggle.
Am I supposed to go? Lord, am I supposed to go?
And 2012 I was at a retreat and
I wish I could find the verse in Joe that that he used to, to
speak to me. And this was a a conviction and
it wasn't an audible voice. But what he told me is, Nick, I
told you where I wanted you to go.
Nick, I told you who I wanted you to minister to.
And you keep asking me when. So the answer was really simple.
Whenever you can, and that is whenever the opportunity arises.
And so from that moment forward, my trips to Uganda were really
easy. The answer was yes.
And I put deposits down and we did the things.
And there were times that the answer was yes, because the
opportunity was there, but then an outage was scheduled during
that time. So I, the, the deposit was gone
and I didn't go right. It was, it's the same way that,
that for years I, I taught, I taught Bible studies.
And if I go to Uganda, it's going to be the same, same
thing. They all know my answer.
If you come up and ask me to teach, my answer is yes, unless
I've got something somewhere else that that means it has to
be a no. But my, my initial response is
going to be yes. That means if you knock at the
door, and this has happened, if you knock at the door at 9:30 at
night on a Saturday night and say, can you teach in the
morning, my answer is yes. Now, that isn't kind of like
studying for an exam. If that's going to be your
attitude, you had better have it.
That isn't something you just get a coast through, right?
I'm at that point I'm when my answer is yes all the time.
I got studies ready all the time.
Now that one particular study that was comical because I had
like 5 studies, four or five studies that I'm like, he asked,
I'm like, yeah, I can do that. Four or five studies almost
done. I can just go back through and,
and went through all four or five studies and God said, Nope,
Nope, Nope, Nope. And I'm like, OK, Lord, let's go
back through those because these are your choices.
These, these are the ones, right?
This is what we're doing. And, and so if you guys can
imagine, I lost that conversation.
And, and so I was up till like 2/30, 3:00 in the morning.
And that particular place is a, is I have to teach 2 studies.
So I had limited sleep. I I believe the studies were
good, but yeah, I barely remember them.
And but it was, it's, it's that willingness to do the next thing
right. Do you trust that he is able to
speak to you? Do you, do you trust that you
trust that, that he is speaking? Because I mean, when you think
about this, a baby in a box in the river and the Nile River is
not somewhere because in Uganda, they have the Nile River.
It's not somewhere I'm putting a baby in the reeds, right?
This is this is not a safe location.
So there is, there is, there's faith in that.
But back to Miriam, give her some credit because she just
this young girl waited to see. She didn't interfere right until
the perfect moment. She didn't panic.
She she had timing and wisdom that that that would be beyond
her years. I'm sure it says starting in
verse 5. Then the daughter of Pharaoh
came down to to bathe at the river and her maidens walked
along the Riverside. And when she saw the ark among
the reeds, she sent her maiden to get it maids to get it.
And when she opened it, she saw the child and behold, the baby
wept. So she had compassion on him and
said, this is one of the Hebrew children.
So the Hebrews or the the Princess knew the score right.
Hebrew children will be were to be thrown in the river by decree
of her father. And so this leads us to a whole
thing with who she was and how did how did she have the ability
to to even have the rest of this conversation.
Carl, do you have that slide? So my best guess, and this is
there's lots of commentaries on who Pharaoh was at that time.
And then this fits the this fits the rest of the whole story of
what goes on, right? Who, who who Pharaoh was when
Moses grows up and everything is she was hath you chef the the
the only daughter of Fathmos the first he did have other
children. He had two sons by the the royal
queen, which would have been the first queen, but they they died.
So this daughter was in a weird spot.
So she is the only one of the royal line because she is of the
she is of her her mom who is the first queen of the royal queen
and her dad who is the sitting Pharaoh.
So in in Egyptian, in the Egyptian court and all that, she
would have been almost untouchable or she just might
have been her dad's favorite. But for whatever reason, she had
the ability to do what God needed her to do, whether she
knew it or not. She is the perfect person to
find and protect his future. Next week I'll spend more time
unpacking that whole slide, but just understand that there is a
there's a moment in time that is is God has people in place to do
what needs to be done. Verse 7 says his sister Miriam
said to the Pharaoh's daughter, shall I go and and call a nurse
for you from the Hebrew women and she may nurse the child for
you. And the Pharaoh daughter said to
her go. So the maiden went and called
the child's mother. Now Miriam was in the perfect
place. We talked about that and This is
why I say she was between 6:00 and eight years old because
there were a lot of ways to approach the Princess.
Hey, that's my brother. Or do you want me to get my mom,
but without lying? And she just asked, do you want
me to get someone to nurse this baby?
And what I, what I kind of laugh about is that all the Princess
says to her is go, which crying babies will do that, right?
That's a crying baby. You can get somebody to hush him
up. That's how I like that.
And and then Jocko Bud came to nurse to be the nursemaid and
the 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.
So the Princess sent sent her away, sent her home with her own
baby that just that morning, right?
We don't know this noon, this could be 9:00 in the morning.
He might have been out there an hour.
He might have been out there most of the day, but just that
morning, Can you imagine the burden and the pain that was
that was in her life and the choices she was making and now?
God had brought a miracle and she would call it nothing less
because not only was her baby safe, but he was back at home
and she was being paid to nurse him and he was to be with her
for for many years. It was until, until he was
weaned. And in the Egyptian culture of
that time, that was between three and four years and could
last up to five. And if I am his mother, or if,
if any of us I believe would be his parents, I'm sure five years
old would be the thing, right? As long as we can possibly keep
this up, we're not trying to wean him anytime soon.
And the cool thing about 5 years old, or between three and five
years old, the core of emotions, emotional, relational and
cultural foundations is laid in the first three to five years.
Now, how does God say that? Train up a child in the way you
should go, and when he is old, He will not depart from it.
So God's foundation was set with Moses's biological parents,
right? And think of sending your
children to public school and the conversations you have with
them before they go. Or think of it like this.
Think of sending your your children to a boarding school
and the only influence you have is what you have taught them
before they go. I would bet you would be
diligent to teach them as much as you could teach them.
Show them as much as you could show them.
Give them as much information about who they are and where
they come from as you can give them.
Teach them about the one true God, about their culture and and
just in. I do think there was still
contact with his family after because Aaron and Moses seem to
have a relationship deeper than A5 and an 8 year old when they
meet up in their 80s. But that is a that is a
speculative thing. It doesn't say anything about
that. And then verse 10 it says and
the child grew and she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter and he
became her son. So she called his name.
Moses saying because I drew him out of the water says so The
funny, funny thing is Pharaoh wanted all boys killed last
week. It was the Black Hat.
He wanted all the boys killed so Israel would be weak and shrink
right Enter the white hat. God's plan and God uses the
Pharaoh's decree. Had Pharaoh not had this decree,
then Moses wouldn't have lived in the palace, wouldn't have
been trained in in all writing, and in Acts 2 or 721, it says.
But when he was set out, Pharaoh's daughter took him away
and brought him up as her own. And Moses learned in all the
wisdom of the Egyptians and was mighty in words and deeds.
So he was trained by the Black Hat to be Israel's champion.
Like I said, God's, God's ways are not our ways.
God's plans are not my plan. My job is to do the next thing.
Now Moses was trained in all the good and the bad of the the
Egyptians had to offer. If we go through this section,
this is all about God being bigger than us.
Do you believe that his, his story is from the author's point
of view, not the character's point of view?
And I, I, I've said that many times in my, in my teaching of
that we're in God's story. He's not in my story, right?
I don't write the book. He writes the book.
It's the the illustration of that is, is me telling
everybody, Hey, come see my movie and I take you to the
movie theater. I pay out, buy out a whole movie
theater and I invite all my friends and I'm serving popcorn
and everybody's coming and, and the movie starts and the, the
credits roll and movies going and it's going and it's going.
And then there's this scene and it's an overview of Central
Park. And I stand up there I am and
I'm in the park that you can't really see me because I'm in the
park. That's us guys.
That's that's my importance in in God's Kingdom to him, I am
the star, you are the star. But in the big history of the
world, he's the star. He wrote the book.
We're just characters in his plan and our job is just to
trust and obey, right? When you, when you look at just
the funny of his name, I guess I'm the one last exclamation
point of God being God in this story is even Moses his name, He
was named by the Egyptians. The one who was drawn out was
also the one who draws out God's people from slavery, right?
God has a story to tell. Will we trust him to tell it
right? Will we trust that when it's
dark? And I don't know, do we trust
that he does know guys as a as a non believer growing up with my
my friends, I had friends that trusted me like this, that I
trusted like this. I had friends because I spent
time with them that I would trust them.
They would trust me to run into the dark and jump off a Cliff
because there was water at the bottom.
And those kind of friends and stupid for sure, but that was
because we had relationship. We knew each other wasn't wasn't
because we read books about each other.
It was because we knew each other, right.
I didn't have, I didn't have friends of friends that would
follow me off that Cliff. They would be the ones called
no, what are you talking about not doing that.
Our job is to have that, have that, that relationship with
God, right? Abraham Lincoln, I'm reading a
book right now and he this morning specifically, he had, he
had a quote in a speech and it was as he was leaving for the
capital. And it says I now leave not
knowing when or whether I ever return with with a task before
me greater than that which rested upon Washington.
Without the assistance of the divine being who whoever
attended him, I cannot succeed without that assistant and with
that assistance I cannot fail. Abraham Lincoln is also very
famous for saying that his job, he got asked about how do you
know God's on your side? And he said, Madam, I'm not
concerned whether or not I am on God's side.
I'm concerned or whether or not God is on my side.
I am concerned. I stay awake every night with
the burden of whether or not I am on God's side.
And that's our job. Our job is to be on his side,
following him. So we're going to do a
communion. Brand's going to come up.
And they had a good song before. Imagine There's a great song
now, but it is well with my soul.
Do you know the story that goes with that is a man who just lost
his entire business and then he lost his children months later
on a in a boating on a ship that sank.
And he is he is on another ship going across and the captain
says, Hey, we're passing the place where the ship went down
and your children died. And he wrote that song there
because he do the God he served. Do you know the God you serve?
Spend some time as as the guys pass out the elements, spend
some time just hanging out with your Lord.
Sing the song. You can take the take the bread
and the the cup When when you feel LED Brandon's going to
sing. I'm going to step down, but
spent some time with Jesus and and just thank him for what he
does in your life and that he has a plan.
Yeah.