# Introduction - Turn in your Bibles to **Exodus 2**. - ## Great Stories... - ### What are some of the greatest stories in literature, film, and history? - ### *Les Misérables* ([[Victor Hugo]]) - ### A hardened criminal is transformed by an act of mercy and spends the rest of his life sacrificially redeeming others, proving that grace can triumph over guilt. - ### *The Lord of the Rings* ([[J. R. Tolkien]]) - ### A humble hobbit carries the burden of evil to its destruction, showing that even the smallest and most unlikely can play a decisive role in the redemption of the world. - ### *To Kill a Mockingbird* ([[Harper Lee]]) - ### Through the eyes of a child, a community’s injustice is laid bare, while a quiet hero models moral courage and compassion that sows the seeds of hope and future change. - ### *The Lion King* - ### A fallen prince runs from his past and identity, but ultimately returns to restore what was broken—_a classic redemption and restoration arc_. - ### *Toy Story* - ### A proud toy learns to let go of rivalry and embrace love and loyalty, discovering that being there for someone else is what gives life its deepest meaning. - ### You will likely have a different list, but the important question is: Why do these stories grip us? - ### They grip us because they echo something deep in the human soul. - ### They engage our longing for rescue, for purpose, for hope. - ## What makes a story a great story? - Conflict and tension - A sympathetic main character - *Someone you can identify with...* - A crisis moment - A transformation and a resolution of the conflict - ## The story of Exodus 2.1–10... - #### By that description and by all of those comparisons, the story of Exodus 2.1–10 has to be one of the best stories in history. - Those other stories are works of fiction, but Exodus 2 is history... - And the God who wrote it still writes redemptive stories today. - And even more important... - We can find ourselves in the middle of this story. - *Today, I want to help you see yourself in the main character of the story.* - It is a story... - Of fear... - Of faith... - And of the faithfulness of the Lord. - #### Today, if you need hope... - If you worry about your family... - Your marriage... - Your children... - Future or present... - Young or old... - If you recognize the uncertainty of this world... - If you see the shadows of evil lurking around you... - #### This story, this historical account, is exactly what you need. # Scripture - ##### **[[Exodus 2.1]] | *Now a man from the family of Levi married a Levite woman.*** (CSB) - We learn later in the book of Exodus that the man's name was Amram and the woman was Jochebed. - ##### **[[Exodus 6.20]] | *Amram married his father’s sister Jochebed, and she bore him Aaron and Moses. Amram lived 137 years.*** (CSB) - Setting... - Egypt... - Slaves... - Oppressed... - The order by the Pharaoh to kill all of the baby boys... - ##### **[[Exodus 1.15]] | *The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives—the first, whose name was Shiphrah, and the second, whose name was Puah—*** (CSB) - ##### **[[Exodus 1.16]] | *“When you help the Hebrew women give birth, observe them as they deliver. If the child is a son, kill him, but if it’s a daughter, she may live.”*** (CSB) - ##### **[[Exodus 1.22]] | *Pharaoh then commanded all his people, “You must throw every son born to the Hebrews into the Nile, but let every daughter live.”*** (CSB) - Life was hard... - Life was filled with uncertainty... - Life was filled with fear... - ##### **[[Exodus 2.2]] | *The woman became pregnant and gave birth to a son; when she saw that he was beautiful, she hid him for three months.*** (CSB) - That is a brief verse, but it is packed with drama and emotion. - ##### The woman became pregnant... - How do you think Jochebed felt about being pregnant? - Ordinarily, in that time like today, pregnancy is reason to rejoice, but maybe not so here. - Jochebed would have known... - If the baby is a girl, that girl will grow up in a difficult world filled with hardship, evil, and uncertainty... - If the baby is a boy, she would have to watch the Egyptian soldiers drown him in the river. - I imagine Jochebed crying every day of her pregnancy. - It would have been a cry of fear and dread and hopelessness. - And every time she heard the guards come through the village and rip a little baby boy from his mom's arms to kill him, she must have just wanted to die herself. - ##### Gave birth to a son... - The day finally came. - Never has a mom been so concerned over the gender of her baby. - It is a boy. - How do you think she felt about that? - ##### She saw that he was beautiful... - What does that mean? - Did she see him as beautiful the way all parents see their newborns? - Maybe. - In Acts 7.20, Stephen talks about Moses birth... - ##### **[[Acts 7.20]] | *At this time Moses was born, and he was beautiful in God’s sight. He was cared for in his father’s home for three months.*** (CSB) - **ALL CHILDREN ARE BEAUTIFUL IN GOD'S SIGHT!** - *([[~abortion]])* - The Hebrew word translated "beautiful" in Exodus 2.2 is translated "good" in Genesis 1. - ##### **[[Genesis 1.4]] | *God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness.*** (CSB) - ##### **[[Genesis 1.10]] | *God called the dry land “earth,” and the gathering of the water he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.*** (CSB) - ##### **[[Genesis 1.12]] | *The earth produced vegetation: seed-bearing plants according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.*** (CSB) - ##### **[[Genesis 1.18]] | *to rule the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good.*** (CSB) - ##### **[[Genesis 1.21]] | *So God created the large sea-creatures and every living creature that moves and swarms in the water, according to their kinds. He also created every winged creature according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.*** (CSB) - ##### **[[Genesis 1.25]] | *So God made the wildlife of the earth according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that crawl on the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.*** (CSB) - ##### **[[Genesis 1.31]] | *God saw all that he had made, and it was very good indeed. Evening came and then morning: the sixth day.*** (CSB) - ##### She hid him for three months. - Can you imagine how hard this was? - Hard in a physical way... - Crying baby... - Prying eyes and listening ears... - Hard emotionally... - Will today be the day my son will be killed? - Every day her baby got bigger she knew his growth would lead to his death! - The good news is, she did not do this alone... - Both Jochebed and Amram did this together. - ##### **[[Hebrews 11.23]] | *By faith Moses, after he was born, was hidden by his PARENTS for three months, because they saw that the child was beautiful, and they didn’t fear the king’s edict.*** (CSB) - ##### **[[Exodus 2.3]] | *But when she could no longer hide him, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with asphalt and pitch. She placed the child in it and set it among the reeds by the bank of the Nile.*** (CSB) - ##### *But when she could no longer hide him - She kept him hidden as long as she possibly could... - What would you have done? - ##### She got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with asphalt and pitch. - What is she doing? - I'm speculating here, but I think she thought of an old Bible story her dad must have told her a thousand times... - The story of Noah's Ark - In a hopeless situation, God told Noah how to build an ark that would rescue him and rescue his family from the pending disaster. - Jochebed build a little ark. - In fact, if you are reading a King James Bible, instead of basket, the word is ARK. - ##### **[[Exodus 2.3]] | *And when she could not longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein; and she laid it in the flags by the river’s brink.*** (KJV 1900) - In the original Hebrew the same word is used for basket and ark. - She must have remembered Genesis 6.14... - ##### **[[Genesis 6.14]] | *“Make yourself an ark of gopher wood. Make rooms in the ark, and cover it with pitch inside and outside.*** (CSB) - So, she built an ark. - She didn't have wood; so she used papyrus reeds. - She covered it with asphalt and pitch just like Noah was instructed to cover his ark. - ##### She placed the child in it and set it among the reeds by the bank of the Nile. - How hard would that have been? - She kissed her baby boy, placed him in the basket, and pushed that little ark out into the water. - This is the same water that was meant to be the instrument of execution. - The water represented evil, chaos, uncertainty, and death. - But she was trusting her little ark. - And really she was trusting the Lord. - Then, Jochebed, the mother of Moses, the mother of that beautiful baby boy, walked away. - I imagine she was so emotional that she feared if she would have stayed nearby, she would have attracted too much attention and her plan would have been discovered and interrupted. - Her heart must have been so broken... crushed... - ##### **[[Exodus 2.4]] | *Then his sister stood at a distance in order to see what would happen to him.*** (CSB) - His sister's name was Miriam. - ##### **[[Exodus 15.20]] | *Then the prophetess Miriam, Aaron’s sister, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women came out following her with tambourines and dancing.*** (CSB) - This is one more piece of evidence that the whole family was involved in these events. - Why did the sister, Miriam, wait? - Was this a part of some elaborate scheme to get Pharaoh's daughter to discover the baby? - Maybe, but I don't think so. - There is no direct indication of that in the Exodus 2 story and no reference to it in either of the two New Testament passages that speak to this event. - “The preservation of Moses was not due to the cleverness of his family but to the PROVIDENCE of God.” ([[Douglas Stuart]]) - I imagine she just couldn't pull herself away from her baby brother. - ##### **[[Exodus 2.5]] | *Pharaoh’s daughter went down to bathe at the Nile while her servant girls walked along the riverbank. She saw the basket among the reeds, sent her slave girl, took it,*** (CSB) - This verse describes the providence of God. - ##### **[[Exodus 2.6]] | *opened it, and saw him, the child—and there he was, a little boy, crying. She felt sorry for him and said, “This is one of the Hebrew boys.”*** (CSB) - God’s time to help is when things are at the worst; Moses is born in peril, but he is wept over by one who ought to have killed him. ([[Matthew Henry]]) - ##### **[[Exodus 2.7]] | *Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Should I go and call a Hebrew woman who is nursing to nurse the boy for you?”*** (CSB) - This is as much a demonstration of faith on Miriam's part as what we saw three verses ago when Jochebed put the basket in the river. - ##### **[[Exodus 2.8]] | *“Go,” Pharaoh’s daughter told her. So the girl went and called the boy’s mother.*** (CSB) - ##### **[[Exodus 2.9]] | *Then Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child and nurse him for me, and I will pay your wages.” So the woman took the boy and nursed him.*** (CSB) - Wouldn't this make the greatest ending to a movie... - And yet, this is REAL HISTORY! - Let me say, this is God's style. - ##### **[[Jeremiah 32.17]] | *Oh, Lord God! You yourself made the heavens and earth by your great power and with your outstretched arm. Nothing is too difficult for you!*** (CSB) - ##### **[[Ephesians 3.20]] | *Now to him who is able to do above and beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us—*** (CSB) - ##### **[[Psalm 77.14]] | *You are the God who works wonders; you revealed your strength among the peoples.*** (CSB) - ##### **[[Job 5.9]] | *He does great and unsearchable things, wonders without number.*** (CSB) - ##### **[[Exodus 2.10]] | *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.”*** (CSB) - Providence can make a cradle of the crocodile’s river and a home in the house of tyrants. ([[John Trapp]]) # Finding Hope in Unlikely Places - That is an incredible story that shows how the providence of God began to raise up Moses to be a great leader and liberator of the people of Israel. - But more than that, this story shows us how we can find hope in unlikely places. - Let me show you this peace in unlikely places by establishing four facts from this account in Exodus 2. # I. God offers hope in this chaotic and evil world. - ## In the Bible, bodies of water often represent chaos, destruction, and evil. - Whether it is the flood waters of Genesis 6 or the Mediterranean Sea in the book of Jonah... - Or whether it is the metaphoric water of Psalm 69... - ##### **[[Psalm 69.1]] | *Save me, God, for the water has risen to my neck.*** (CSB) - ##### **[[Psalm 69.2]] | *I have sunk in deep mud, and there is no footing; I have come into deep water, and a flood sweeps over me.*** (CSB) - Or the absence of the sea in the New Earth... - ##### **[[Revelation 21.1]] | *Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.*** (CSB) - ## The waters of the Nile in Exodus 2 stood for the destruction of the Israelites. - There was no denying the power and ruthlessness of their Egyptian masters. - ## But Jochebed put baby Moses in a basket covered with pitch. - ##### **[[Exodus 2.3]] | *But when she could no longer hide him, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with asphalt and pitch. She placed the child in it and set it among the reeds by the bank of the Nile.*** (CSB) - ## Bitumen was a **thick, sticky, semi-solid form of crude oil**. - This was the same thing Noah used on his ark... - ##### **[[Genesis 6.14]] | *“Make yourself an ark of gopher wood. Make rooms in the ark, and cover it with pitch inside and outside.*** (CSB) - ## Interestingly, the same word class used for pitch is used in the Old Testament for atonement. - ##### **[[Leviticus 16.6]] | *“Aaron will present the bull for his sin offering and make atonement for himself and his household.*** (CSB) - Atonement is the act of covering our sin. - ## Jesus is the atonement for our sin. - ##### **[[1 John 4.10]] | *Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.*** (CSB) - Jesus is the PITCH that protects from the waters of judgment. - The basket of Moses, daubed with pitch, was but a shadow pointing forward to Christ’s sacrifice, whose blood is our pitch, covering us thoroughly against sin’s destructive flood. ([[Thomas Watson]]) - **==GOSPEL==** - The pitch, tar, asphalt tells the story of the gospel in Genesis 6, in Exodus 2, and in the shed blood of Christ. - ##### **[[Psalm 32.1]] | *How joyful is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered!*** (CSB) # II. All your family needs from you is your faith in the Lord. - ## What did baby Moses need? - He just needed his parents to trust the Lord. - ##### **[[Exodus 2.3]] | *But when she could no longer hide him, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with asphalt and pitch. She placed the child in it and set it among the reeds by the bank of the Nile.*** (CSB) - ##### **[[Hebrews 11.23]] | *By faith Moses, after he was born, was hidden by his parents for three months, because they saw that the child was beautiful, and they didn’t fear the king’s edict.*** (CSB) - Moses didn't need them to be clever, powerful, wealthy... - He just needed them to be people of faith. - Nothing else would have helped. - Notice their faith (trust) was an... - An active faith... - They placed Moses in the basket, but ultimately, she placed him into the hands of God. ([[Jen Wilkin]]) - Jochebed’s courage shows us that real faith isn’t a vague optimism, but a determined trust that God is both sovereign and good. ([[Tim Keller]]) - A fearless faith... - In her bold act of faith, Jochebed reminds every parent that God can be trusted with the precious things He has entrusted to us. ([[Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth]]) - A bold faith... - ## Moms and Dads (Grandparents), the one thing your family needs is for you to TRUST the Lord. - Your FAITH/TRUST will mean more for your children (whatever their age)... - Your FAITH/TRUST will mean more for your marriage... - ##### **[[Matthew 6.33]] | *But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you.*** (CSB) - ## This is not a passive faith... - An active faith... - A fearless faith... - Jochebed’s example challenges parents today not only to protect their children but also to trust God completely, especially in circumstances they cannot control. [[Tony Merida]] - A bold faith... # III. The Lord desires to assure those who are worried, shaken, or crushed. - ## When Jochebed kissed her baby boy for what she thought was the final time and pushed his basket out into the river, she could not have imagined the Lord's plan... - That the family of the evil and wicked Pharaoh would rescue her son... - That she would get her son back and be able to raise him... - And get paid to do it to boot. - That Moses would go on to be the liberator of the entire nation of Israel... - That Moses would go down as arguably the greatest leader in the history of the world... - ## Listen moms and dads, grandparents, husbands, wives... - God has plans you can't imagine. - If you will just trust him, and keep trusting him, and trust him more and more... - God has plans! - ## Prayers... - I want to pray for the Lord's protection on our families and for the Lord to increase our faith and help us to trust him in hard times. - #### Instructions for the ladies... - I want the ladies to pray for the ladies. - I want to ask all of the ladies and girls to stand. - Just the ladies and girls. - Ladies, if you can reach and put your hand on the shoulder of another lady in front of you, please do that. - **==Donna will pray (two minutes)...==** - **==Father, we live in such an uncertain world...==** - **==There is evil all around our marriages, our families, around mothers, and around grandparents, and around women who have not had children...==** - **==Protect us...==** - **==Give us the faith of Jochebed...==** - **==Help us to trust you with the precious things you have entrusted to us.==** - **==Help us to put our fears in a basket and launch them into your providential care...==** - #### Instructions for the men... - Now, ladies please be seated. - I want to ask all of the men and boys to stand. - Ladies, if you can reach and put your hand on the shoulder of another lady in front of you, please do that. - Noel prays for the men... - Make us men of faith... # IV. Now is the time to come home. - ## We don't know how long Moses was in the home of his parents. - Scholarship based on Exodus 2.10 ranges from four years to ten years. - Either way, it seems later in Moses life that he feels a personal identity connection with the Jews and an affinity toward the Jewish customs. - ## So, Moses gets an early education in the faith and would have learned about the Lord. - Then Moses goes off for his formal Egyptian education. - According to secular sources, Moses becomes a successful general in the Pharaoh's army. - ## I wonder if his parents wondered if he would ever come back to his roots. - Finally something clicked with Moses when he was forty years old... - ##### **[[Acts 7.23]] | *“When he was forty years old, he decided to visit his own people, the Israelites.*** (CSB) - ## What does that tell me? - Parents, don't give up praying... - Kids (big kids), it is ok for you to come back to the faith. - Now is the time to come back. **==<<<<<<<<<< BEGIN BACKGROUND MUSIC >>>>>>>>>>==** # Conclusion - ## The Bible gives us some incredible pictures of bold faith... - Abraham offers Isaac... - David faces Goliath... - Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refuse to bow... - ## A greater faith... - But I don't think there is any greater picture of faith in all the Bible and all of history than Jochebed making that little ark (basket), kissing her son's forehead, baptizing him with her tears, and pushing him out into the Nile trusting the Lord to do something. - Let us be inspired by Jochebed today.