Elevate - The Story Pt 5 - Moses - Neal DiQuattro

When God says you're ready, it doesn't mean you feel ready. He looks at your heart and trusts you. It's okay to doubt your abilities, as it makes you rely on God. The Exodus story is part of God's mission of redemption. God's method is partnering with imperfect people. The Exodus is a turning point in God's plan of redemption. It connects to the promise to Abraham and the prophecy in Genesis. The Exodus is a cosmic battle for redemption. Pharaoh sees the growing Hebrew population as a threat. Satan tries to cut off God's plan by killing the firstborn sons. When God says you're ready, it doesn't mean that you feel you're ready. It means that there's something He sees inside of your heart that He can trust and that He can work with. It's not a bad thing if you don't think you can do it, necessarily. In fact, I'd rather be the person saying, God, you called me, I'll do it, but gosh, I sure don't think I can do it. Because then you'll rely on God, rather than relying on the talents and the abilities that you have. Welcome to Elevate, from Authentic Life Church in Mobile, Alabama, with Pastor John DiQuatro. We hope it builds your faith and helps you to live a life for God that you've always wanted to live. We hope it inspires you to be a fully devoted, authentic follower of Jesus Christ. Enjoy the message, and welcome to Elevate. Today's message is from Authentic Life Church youth minister and worship leader, Neal DiQuatro. Good morning, everybody. So yes, I get the fun of teaching on the Exodus story this morning. And as Pastor just said, it is just a subplot to the larger story of God's redemption. You know, the story sort of stands on its own, and you're left with a sense of just being in awe of God's power and God's faithfulness. And that's mostly where we'll leave the story, but I will pull out a couple of things that have some practical applications for our lives. But I want to encourage you before we get started just to allow your faith to be built up as we look at not a fable, but a real account of what our God did to eventually bring us to the place we are today as redeemed people. Amen? Alright, so there's two themes that are observed in chapter 4 of the story Bible that we can view, and just to make them easy to remember, we'll just call them this. We see themes of God's mission and God's method. We see themes of God's mission, what He's doing, why He's doing it, and His method, how He does it. Because those themes apply to our life today, and we can also see it all throughout Scripture. And so God's mission. Well, what's God's mission that He's on in chapter 4 here as we talk about the Exodus? Well, it's God's mission of redemption, as Pastor just said. And God's mission of redemption will not be stopped by any power in hell or any power on this earth. And there's never a time when that picture becomes so clear. If you look at Isaiah chapter 55, verse 10 through 11, we see that as the rain and snow come down from heaven, they do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and the bread for the eater. So is My Word that goes out from My mouth. It will not return to Me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. When God says He's going to do something, He does it. And nothing gets in His way. Nothing stops Him. God's method. Well, what are we talking about here? Well, just how He accomplishes His will, which is basically this, partnering with messed up people. That's you and me. For some reason, it is God's good pleasure to partner in everything He does on this earth with redeemed people. And that makes it very sloppy and messy. And if we want to be a part of that, we have to get on board with that, and allow the Holy Spirit to do His work in our life. We see in 2 Corinthians chapter 4, verse 7, But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. So God, we're the jars of clay. We're broken. We're fractured. When we get dropped, we break. But God still uses us, and He makes us who He wants to be to advance His purpose. I mean, think about that for a minute. We get so focused on being recipients of salvation that we forget we're partners also with God, by His own doing. Not because He needs us or that we're worthy, but because He's a good God, and that's His good pleasure. So let's start with God's mission of redemption that's continuing through the Exodus story here. And it's important to recognize that Exodus, the story of the Exodus, means nothing really as a stand-alone story all by itself. Because the Exodus is just one stop-off, one point in time of the bigger picture of God's redemption that started in the garden, that moved forward through Exodus, that moved forward through the conquest of Canaan, that brought us all the way to Jesus. But what I want us all to see, and maybe if you haven't seen this before, I want you to see it today, that the Exodus matters and is so important, not just because God's rescuing His people, but this is a major turning of the page in the plot of God bringing about redemption. Does that make sense? That's what the Exodus is all about. And this is God really taking the next step in fulfilling a promise from a guy we heard about a few weeks ago, which is Abraham. In Genesis, God says to Abraham, I'll make you into a great nation, I will bless you, and all the peoples on the earth will be blessed through you. And they didn't know it at the time, because that seems like a really sort of a broad, you know, promise. You're going to make me a blessing and you're going to bless my family. We know now in hindsight that what he's talking about there is bringing the process of redemption of God's fallen people to completion. And so the Exodus advanced this story. But even the story of Abraham is just further clarification of the first prophecy of redemption that we see in the garden. And you all remember this probably from the first week of us doing the story series. Genesis chapter 3, verse 15. When God says, I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed, he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. This is believed to be the first messianic prophecy where God says, you all messed up, but I love you enough and I'm going to fix this thing. And you see this enmity between, there's three players. There's the seed, you have Jesus, and then you have the enemy of our soul and his head will be crushed, right? So God gives us those words and then he clarifies it a little bit with Abraham. And then he moves the plot along a little bit during the Exodus. So why do I spend so much time explaining all of that? Because part of the goal here at Authentic Life Church is that we would really understand our Bibles. And that we would know what they say from beginning to end and we know where it all fits in. Listen, saved people seek God. And so we want to do the work of understanding that the Exodus is really cool because it shows that God's powerful. But there's something even more at work here. There's a strategic moment where God advances the plot that connects all of the Bible. And that's the plan of redemption. So if we don't know where it plugs into that, then we really don't understand the Exodus story. So with that in mind, let's see how God's redemptive mission comes to pass by delivering his people. So we'll read a longer portion of Scripture here. And we're going to start in Exodus chapter 1, verse 8. You're going to see that I'm going to skip around a little bit, but you can follow it on the screen. Now there arose a new king over Egypt who did not know Joseph. Remember last week? Did not know Joseph and the favor he had. And he said to his people, look, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we. Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply. And it happened in the event of war that they also join our enemies and fight against us. And so go up out of the land. Therefore, they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh supply cities of Pithom and Ramses. And then the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives to whom the name of one was Shipra and the name of the other was Pua. And he said, when you do the duties of a midwife for the Hebrew women and see them on birthstools, if it is a son, then you shall kill him. But if it is a daughter, then she shall live. But the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded, but saved the male children alive. Therefore, God dealt well with the midwives. And the people multiplied and grew very mighty. And so it was, because the midwives feared God, that he provided households for them. So Pharaoh commanded all his people, saying, Every son who is born you shall cast into the river, and every daughter you shall save alive. Think about that for a moment. The Hebrew people, the descendants of Abraham, the descendants of Joseph, are now becoming a people, they're growing in the land of Egypt. And when this begins to happen, it kicks off what I've described as nothing less than a cosmic battle. A cosmic battle that takes place that's ultimately about redemption. And a threat emerges to Egypt as the population grows. And there's two threats here, there's one on the surface. Pharaoh's just concerned that they're going to get so big, because God's blessing them and they're having families, and the population is increasing so much, that there'll be a military threat against us, either directly, or they'll partner with a surrounding nation, and there'll be a military threat. But there's another layer to this threat that makes the actions of Pharaoh that seem so out of, just seem such overkill. We're going to kill every firstborn son? I mean, every son? What is that all about? When you understand the spiritual threat, it makes sense why he would be inspired to do that. God was raising up a people through whom he'd execute his redemptive plan. Now listen, Satan doesn't know the future. He doesn't have an oracle, he's not omniscient like God. But he can tell when God is doing something. And so now he can start to see that God's people are starting to emerge. And this is a problem, and this is a spiritual threat, and so what does the enemy do? Well, he does something that we see him doing all throughout Scripture, which is to cut off God's plan at the head, or at least try. And that's what we see happening here. It happened when the enemy brought death to the first man and woman to try to stop God's creation before it really got started. We see it happening during the exodus with the male babies. We see it happening in Jesus' time at the hand of Herod. Remember that? We're going to kill the boys. And this is not the point of my message, but I would say that it's still happening today through the murdering of unborn babies. So this is the plan of the enemy. When he gets really afraid, just kill the men. Kill the boys. Just stop it before it gets going. But praise God, God undermines the enemy's plan. And that's what the exodus is about. So let's see what happens as this unfolds. In chapter 2, verse 1, And a man of the house of Levi went and took his 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 for three months. But when she could no longer hide him, she took an ark of bulrushes for him, daubed him with asphalt and pitch, put the child in it, and laid it in the reeds by the river's bank. And his sister stood afar off to know what would be done of him. Then the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, and her maidens walked along the riverside. And when they saw the ark among the reeds, she sent her maid 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 Hebrews. And here is where we begin to see not only what God's mission is, but God's method of delivering a young boy and raising up a man to be his hands and feet in this earth to accomplish his purpose. And we all know this story. This is Moses being miraculously saved as he's floated down the river, and by chance or luck, he ends up in Pharaoh's household and learning the insides and out and gaining favor. Absolutely not a stroke of luck. And so Moses is the next turning of the page as God's getting ready to bring deliverance and advance the plan of redemption. But Moses grows up, and he messes up. There's the cliff notes. Moses grows up, and he messes up. How does he mess up? Well, he sees an Egyptian mistreating a Hebrew, and he kills him to rescue his fellow Hebrew. Well, this did not end well, because he killed an Egyptian. So now Pharaoh wants him dead. And so this causes Moses to flee for his life into the wilderness to escape Pharaoh's wrath. Let's look at what happened in verse 11 of chapter 2. Now it came to pass in those days when Moses was grown that he went out to his brethren and looked at their burdens, and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his brethren. So he looked this way and that way, and when he saw no one, he killed the Egyptian and he hid him in the sand, and he went out the second day. Behold, two Hebrew men were fighting, and he said to the one who did the wrong, Why are you striking your companion? Then he said, This is the Hebrew, Who made you prince and judge over us? Did you intend to kill me as you killed the Egyptian? I want you to think about this for a moment. I didn't recognize this until this time through of reading this account. There's a powerful truth that's embedded, because Moses' fellow Hebrew said, Who made you judge over us? Right? But the fact is that Moses does become judge over them. Right? Moses does become... It's ironic in a sense. He does become judge over him. What was the problem? It wasn't his time yet. And there's a truth that's buried in here that we can apply to our own lives about what happens when an unsanctified gifting gets cut loose. It leads to disaster instead of deliverance. You see, God has gifted all of us and anointed all of us with some usefulness for Him. But our gifting is not what makes us useful to God. That's just a vehicle for God to do whatever it is He wants to do. It is our heart and our character that is useful to God. Being someone that He can trust, someone that He can rely on. And Moses just wasn't in this place yet. So this is why Moses enters the season that we could say of training. Because where does he end up? In the wilderness. Moses ends up in the wilderness. And we see this time and time again in God's Word. A biblical pattern of how He takes people who have gifting and ability but aren't ready and matures them and sanctifies them. God sends them into the wilderness. This is the biblical pattern of usefulness to God. And it seems to always involve the wilderness. You've got Abraham. And I'm just going to name like 5 of the 30. Abraham. Moses. As we're talking about. We have Elijah. We have John the Baptist. Jesus went into the wilderness to be tested. We have the Apostle Paul. After his Damascus Road conversion. We don't know the exact time frame, but some scholars believe there was those years before his ministry started. He went to Arabia, I think for 14 years. He went away to deprogram and to reprogram and for God to do a work in his heart. This guy was talented. He was smart. But he wasn't useful to God yet. Because talents that are unsanctified lead to disasters. Not deliverance. Does that make sense? Has anyone seen this happen? So this is what's happening with Moses. Some of us are being tested in the wilderness. Like Abraham and Jesus. We can understand that. You might be in a wilderness experience in your life now. Some of us are in the wilderness and it's self-induced. And I want to say to you that God will still use that. Even if you find yourself wandering in a tough place in life because you're reaping what you've sowed, it's still a wilderness. And it's a place where God can make you exactly who He wants you to be. For usefulness for His kingdom. One more thing about the wilderness. Because this really can hit home for us. The wilderness is a sloppy, messed up place. Anyone here ever felt like you walked through the wilderness? Some of you may feel like you're there now. It's a sloppy place. This is where we find ourselves confronted with our shortcomings. We find ourselves confronted with our sin and our failures and our inadequacy and our disbelief. All the things that God wants us to deal with so we can move forward in our walk with Him. And our focus needs to be on allowing God's process to be completed so we can come out the other side useful for His purposes. Praise God. Many of you have heard me share my testimony of going through a wilderness experience. But I will tell you, in my first ten years in ministry, all I had to offer people was something that I read on a page or learned. And praise God for that. God's Word's enough. And I've often said this to pastors, but you know what? I didn't really feel like I had anything to give. Until ten years later after I went through a bunch of junk and I went through a wilderness and felt very lost and had to ask tough questions, that I felt like I really actually had anything to offer anyone. Because there was no humility before then, right? There was certainly no wisdom. And what do you know? It's 25. And so I say this to you to encourage you, because we have people in this room that are from 18 to 80. And you need to know that you're useful. Listen, I'll take ten years of doing God's will from 70 to 80 with wisdom and maturity behind me, than 30 years just relying on the fumes of my gifting and hurting people along the way. Does that make sense? So if you're 70, if you're 60, if you're 50, I tell you, the runway for you is long. If you've allowed God to do the work in your life through the wilderness. Moses was what? 79, 78? I forget the exact age. When he ended up confronting Pharaoh. Talk about runway. This wasn't at the time where everyone was living like 200 years. Right? And this guy made a difference that most of us, well, none of us probably will make in our world. At 80 years old. So there is a future. Amen. Totally. I'll get back to my notes. Moses in the wilderness. What happens? He gets married. He has a family. And a long time passes. And that's about all we know. Like 40 years. A long time passes. We know he has a family. We know he gets married. And we know the Pharaoh who wanted to kill him dies. Here's what matters. It was a long time in the wilderness. And that's just okay. No one said he was miserable the whole time. Right? I mean, Abraham wasn't miserable the whole time he was in the wilderness. But it's a place where God makes a man and a woman of God. But then suddenly, God decides that Moses is ready. That's important. God decides. Moses doesn't decide. God decides that Moses is ready to lead his people. And so then, suddenly, in a moment, God's word comes to advance the mission of redemption. And it comes to Moses in Exodus chapter 3 verse 6. This is the burning bush account. Where Moses is just doing whatever, playing Xbox, probably Switch. It's better anyway. It's more fun. And suddenly, he looks off in the distance. He sees a bush or a tree, whatever exactly it was. We don't know. It's burning, but it's not consuming the tree. And he hears a voice come out from this bush in the wilderness. And then here we go. Verse 6. God says, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God. Verse 7. And the Lord said, I have surely seen the oppression of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of the taskmasters. For I know their sorrows. That's just good all by itself. So I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and bring them up from that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites and Hittites and Amorites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites and Mosquito Bites. Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come to me, and I have also seen the oppression with what the Egyptians oppressed them. Come now, therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh, that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt. Praise God! After all of these years, God speaks, and He says to the man of God, You're ready. God says, You're ready. He does it through a burning bush. And then here's what happens with Moses. More cliff notes. Moses deals with a whole lot of self-doubt. A whole lot of self-doubt. He argues with God. He makes excuses of why he can't do it. He asks for a sign. Listen, when God says you're ready, it doesn't mean that you feel you're ready. It means that there's something He sees inside of your heart that He can trust and that He can work with. It probably has something to do with your character that He sees, that you've matured. In fact, it's not a bad thing if you don't think you can do it, necessarily. In fact, I'd rather be the person saying, God, you called me, I'll do it, but gosh, I sure don't think I can do it. Because then you'll rely on God, rather than relying on the talents and the abilities that you have. Think about this. When Moses killed that Egyptian, and his fellow Hebrews said to him, Listen, who made you judge? They saw something within Moses. They saw his talent. There was something about Moses' demeanor, how he carried himself, how Moses viewed himself, that would make him the one that would step in and say, Oh, I'm going to deliver you from this Egyptian that's persecuting you. Do you see that? There was something within him that wanted to sort of be that guy. It just wasn't time yet for him to be that guy. Talent wasn't enough. So he deals with all this self-doubt. God says he's ready. Moses didn't realize that the gift God needed was not his ability to speak. He wanted his wisdom. And it seems God was most interested with his fear of the Lord. His fear of the Lord seems to be, when you read the whole account of Moses' life, what qualifies him for service to the Lord. The Word says the fear of God is the beginning of all knowledge and all wisdom. May we have the fear of God at Authentic Life Church, that we never rely too much on just the gifts, the talents, the fleshly things. God will use those things. But the fuel in our tank should be the fear of an Almighty God and respect for Him. So that seems to be what qualified Moses. Now God helps him. God gives him Aaron to help him speak. God assures him of the deliverance that will come and how it's going to come. And if you read this chapter, you know everything that I'm talking about. So I'm breezing over it. And then he receives the famous command, Tell Pharaoh, let my people go. I better speed up. So this brings us back to the cosmic battle for redemption that takes place. And that's what makes the Exodus story so cool, that has captured the attention of generations and generations, because it's epic in its scope. And I want to unpack some of that so you can see why. God is getting ready to create a nation through whom the Savior of the world would come. But they needed to be set free first. So it's the next page turning in the plot. But Pharaoh refuses to let God's people go. I don't think there's anyone who doesn't know that that's what happened. Why? I want us to think about this for a minute. Why did Pharaoh dig in his heels and refuse to let God's people go? You've got to understand the worldview back in that time, that not only Pharaoh had and the Egyptians, but very likely the Hebrews probably had this worldview. And this may sound like heresy, but understand, what we know now, they didn't know necessarily back then. The Hebrew God was known to the Egyptians as one of many gods. That's polytheism, right? One of many gods. But in fact, many of the Hebrews seemed, and Moses possibly, seemed to see their own God as the strongest of all the gods. I mean, they certainly believed He was the best. He was the top guy. He was the strongest. But it took some time for monotheism to get burned into God's people because they didn't know better right away. Remember, this is not after they're in Canaan, and they've got the Ten Commandments, and they've got all of Leviticus, and all of the rules and the laws and everything set out. This is before all of that. So it's through the making of Israel that God reveals the truth that He is the one and only true God. This is a momentous time in redemptive history where God steps up and says, Hey, it's not me. I'm not just one of many. It's me, and it's just me. I am Yahweh. This is why God introduces Himself as follows. And this is really important in chapter 3, verse 14. God said to Moses, I am who I am. And He said, Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, Who sent you? I am sent you. Moreover, God said to Moses, Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, The Lord God of your fathers, the son of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. He's connecting the dots. He's saying this relational God that you know, that you love, the God of your fathers, He's not just any other God. He's the I Am. He's explaining very clearly what He means. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It's not just the best God, the most powerful God. He's the only God. He's the I Am. But what does I Am mean? It's a packed word. It means self-existent one. Self-sufficient. Self-sustaining. God who was, who is, who will be. In fact, this name was so holy over time, the Israelites wouldn't even say this name for God out loud. Because when you say I Am, He's the I Am. You're saying it all. And this is compared to the impersonal pantheon of gods that the Egyptians had. There's one God, one Creator, Sustainer, one who is holy, who is now waging a cosmic war against the forces of darkness. How do we find that out? This story. That's why this is so powerful. It's the same words that Jesus used in the Garden of Eden. John 18. Just before Jesus is crucified. And he says here, chapter 4, Jesus therefore, knowing all things that will come upon Him, went forward and said to them, Who are you seeking? We're looking for Jesus. Who is this Jesus? And Judas was betraying Him. Who are you seeking? They answered Him. Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus said to them, I Am He. Thank you for listening to Elevate. We hope this message encouraged, inspired, and challenged you. Authentic Life Church is located at 3750 Michael Boulevard in Mobile, Alabama. Visit our website, authenticlife.tv for more information about Authentic Life Church. To find out what we have going on, or to make a donation. You can also find us on Facebook. We'd love for you to join us on Sunday at 10 a.m. for our weekend service. We have excellent children's, nursery, and youth programs, so bring the family. For Pastor John DeQuatro, I'm Scott Chestnut. Thanks again for listening, and God bless you.