Date: June 8, 2003
Text: Exodus 2:1-10
Topic: Life
Lessons from Moses
Series: The
Life and Times of Moses
Title: “Moses
– Prince of Egypt”
Pastor Steve Jackson - NewSong Community Church, Cumming, GA
Theme: God always uses human agents and never wastes an experience as he causes his plans to come about.
“Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in speech and action.” Acts 7:22 NIV
It may sound strange to you, but I enjoy walking around in cemeteries. I consider them some of the holiest places around and I always feel close to God there. I found myself in a cemetery recently and I noticed many of the tombstones looked extremely old. I began reading the names and dates on the headstones. Some had short epitaphs on them, things like, “Devoted Father,” or “Loving Wife.” Others bore passages of Scripture or had pictures etched in them. Eventually one tombstone in particular caught my eye. The weather beaten stone bore the name of a man and the dates 1892-1989. In case you’re trying to do the math in your head that made him 97 years old when he died.
As I meditated there in the cemetery I wondered about the man whose name marked that stone. Just think of all the changes he experienced in his lifetime. He witnessed the beginning of the automotive age right on through the space age. I wondered to myself if he felt as though he lead a full and productive life. How did he handle the ups and downs of life? Was life for him a weary struggle to get from one day to the next, or did he grow in knowledge, insight, and character as he traveled from 1892 to 1989? Was his life a burden or a joy? Did others love him? Did he die defeated and bitter, or triumphant?
Today we’re beginning a three-part series on another man who lived to a ripe old age and experienced a lot. For the next three weeks we’re going to be examining “The life and Times of Moses,” whom the Bible says lived to be 120 years old (Deut. 34:7).
Moses is a man that just about everyone has heard about. One of my favorite movies of all time is about the life of Moses - Cecil B. DeMille's 1956 classic "The Ten Commandments." Who can forget Yul Brynner as Pharaoh and Charlton Heston as Moses? I can see him now, standing high on that rock using his staff to part the waters of the Red Sea so the Israelites can walk through. The movie still gets high ratings whenever it is shown on TV. And now a whole new generation has been introduced to this fascinating character through the animated feature film "The Prince of Egypt." What is it about Moses that is so compelling? I think it’s because Moses was great, but he was also very human. He struggled with ambition, fear, compromise, and sin. Even so, his life shows us what God can do with someone who is willing to believe and obey him.
Today we’re going to talk Moses’ early years. What we’ll discover as we move through his life is that Moses actually lived three lives in one; his life can be divided into three forty-year periods. The first forty years were spent in Pharaoh’s Court. For Moses, as we’ll see today, this was a time of TRAINING. Next Moses went into the desert at a place called Midian and spent the next forty years. This was a time of TESTING. Finally, Moses spent his last forty years delivering Israel. This was a time of TRIUMPH.
As for the early years – you probably know the story – but let me refresh your mind. Moses was born during a period of intense persecution by the Egyptians. The small band of 70 Hebrews that entered Egypt some 400 years earlier had now grown to well over a million. Although they were slaves to the Egyptians, the Israelites represented a sizable force, one that had begun to frighten the Egyptians. What if they rebelled? Could the Egyptians handle them? Pharaoh issued a decree that all the male Hebrew babies born should be killed to keep the Hebrew population from growing. When Moses was born during this persecution his mother hid him for three months and then set him adrift in a reed basket on the Nile River to save him. Pharaoh’s daughter was bathing in the area and discovered the basket and Moses in it. Moses’ sister saw this, and she went to Pharaoh’s daughter and suggested she get a Hebrew to nurse the baby. Pharaoh’s daughter agreed and had Moses’ sister take Moses to his own mother to be nursed. Moses was then raised in Pharaoh’s palace. One day, when he was about forty years old Moses was out among his own people, the Hebrews, when he witnessed an Egyptian taskmaster beating a Hebrew. Moses murdered the Egyptian and hid the body in the sand. Because of this murder though, Moses is forced to flee from Pharaoh, which we’ll talk about next week.
There are many lessons we can learn from the early years of Moses, but three stand out in particular in my mind and that’s what I want us to talk about today.
The first is
simply this. No matter what happens in the world, among the rich, or poor, the
just or the unjust, believer or nonbeliever, GOD’S PURPOSES WILL PREVAIL.
As I mentioned earlier, Moses was born during a period of intense persecution by Pharaoh. Exodus 1:22 informs us that Pharaoh had decreed that, "Every [Hebrew] boy that is born you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live” Ex. 1:22 NIV. These were dark days for the Hebrews. It seemed as though God had completely forgotten them as they slaved away in the sand and heat of Egypt. But God had a plan to send a deliverer, and no decree by an earthly leader – even Pharaoh - could get in the way of God’s plan.
What’s more, even when Moses himself messed up the plan by murdering an Egyptian (as we read in Exodus 2:12) God’s plan prevailed.
The fact that God’s plans always prevail is illustrated by something I saw the other day while watching a National Geographic special on TV. The icy waters near Greenland are filled with countless icebergs, some little and some gigantic. Scientists have noticed that the small ice floes often move in one direction while their massive counterparts flow in another. The explanation for this is simple. Surface winds drive the little ones around but the larger icebergs are unmoved by the wind – their movements are dictated instead by the deep ocean currents. When you and I face difficulty in our lives, when the days seem dark and gloomy, when hope seems lost, it's helpful to see our lives as being subject to two forces--surface winds and ocean currents. The winds represent the fickleness of life - everything changeable, unpredictable, and often distressing. But operating simultaneously with these winds is another force that's even more powerful. It is the unseen, but sure movement of God's wise and sovereign purposes, the deep flow of his unchanging love, which will not fail. Lesson one – God’s purposes will always prevail.
The second
lesson to learn from the early years of Moses is related to the first. Simply
stated, YOU AND I HAVE A ROLE
TO PLAY IN THOSE PURPOSES.
Two snippets from the story remind us of this. The first involves the midwives. Back then you didn’t go to the hospital to have babies, midwives came to you instead, to assist with the birth. Pharaoh had instructed the midwives to kill all the male Hebrew babies, but Exodus 1:17 says, "The midwives…feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do” Exodus 1:17 NIV.
Another part of the story that illustrates our role in God’s purposes is the part about Moses’ sister who courageously went to Pharaoh’s daughter and suggested she get a Hebrew woman to nurse the baby Moses (Ex. 2:7).
What if either of these two, the midwives, or Moses sister, failed to fulfill the role they had to play in God’s plan? Even though God doesn’t need to, God always uses human agents to accomplish his purposes on earth. The question is, are we willing to be used?
When I was in
elementary school I remember reading about a particularly chilling and gruesome
crime that occurred on a New York street in 1964. A lady named Kitty Genovese
was slowly and brutally stabbed to death as she walked from her parked vehicle
to the door of her apartment about 50 feet away. What made the crime so
appalling was investigators eventually discovered that at least thirty-eight of
her neighbors in the brownstone building she lived in witnessed the attack and
heard her screams. In the course of her 90-minute ordeal, her attacker was
frightened away twice by the lights and shouts of her neighbors, but he
returned to finish her off. Not once during that period did any of these 38
neighbors assist her, or even telephone the police. When interviewed
afterwards, the majority of the witnesses said they [quote]“Didn’t want to
get involved.”
The implications of the crime shocked America, and the crime led to several studies to determine the conditions under which people are or are not willing to get involved. The study concluded that the more people present in an emergency situation, the less likely it is that any one of them will offer help. They even gave this phenomenon a name – it’s called the "bystander effect."
What I’m trying to say is this – how many of us have been bystanders when God actually had a role for us to play in a situation? Think back over the past few days in your life and ask yourself if there has been a situation when you may have felt God prompting you to do something – to make a call, to write a note, to speak an encouraging word, or a word of rebuke, and you didn’t. God’s purposes will prevail, and you and I have a role to play in those purposes; let’s make sure we’re not victims of the “bystander effect.”
The third
lesson Moses’ early years teaches us is that EVERY EXPERIENCE IN LIFE IS IMPORTANT.
God doesn’t waste a single experience you and I have – he uses each one.
Consider for instance, these three experiences from the story of Moses:
Moses education and upbringing in
Pharaoh’s court. Acts
7:22 says, "Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and
was powerful in speech and action” Acts 7:22 NIV. Pharaoh no doubt intended
all the training and education Moses received would some day be used to help
govern the Egyptians, but God had other plans. I can almost imagine God
figuring this one out in his mind, “Okay…let’s see, I’ll need someone to
lead my people to freedom because the Egyptians are going to eventually enslave
and mistreat them….hmmm…I’ll use Moses. But Moses is going to need to be very
wise and have excellent leadership skills to lead the Israelites out of bondage
because there will be over a million Israelites by then…hmmm…I’ll have to
figure a way to get Moses the best education possible…hmmm…let’s see, best schools?
Egypt…he’d get that in Pharaoh’s court…aha – I’ve got it!”
Pharaoh’s daughter going down to
bathe. Here we find something ordinary, an every day occurrence coming into
play (that’s how she finds Moses, see Ex. 2:5).
Jethro sends his daughters to the
well. Next week we’ll see how a priest of Midian named Jethro sent his
daughters down to the well to water their animals, again something they did
every day, and God used that experience to put them into contact with Moses
once he departs from Egypt (see Ex. 2:16).
My point is, every place you go, every thing you experience could be something God plans to use to help him accomplish his purposes. I once read somewhere that there are 300,000 species of beetles and over 8600 different species of birds. Why did God create so many different kinds? In one cubic foot of snow there are 18 billion snowflakes, and each one is unique. There are over 6 billion people on earth, not one is exactly alike. There are no carbon copies; no one else on earth has your fingerprints, retina pattern, voiceprint, or DNA, we’re all different. When we leave here today and go our separate ways we’ll all experience different things in the coming week – some will start new jobs, some will go on vacation, and some will have “good” weeks, and some “bad.” But the fact is, each and every experience and each and every person is important because God plans to use us to accomplish his purposes.
Having said all this concerning Moses early years; that God’s purposes will prevail, that we have a role to play in those purposes, and that every experience is important, what are we to do? Here are some application points for us to consider taking action on.
First, of all, we must TRUST GOD. This is the main lesson I believe God was teaching Moses – and by extension the people of Israel and you and me. No matter how dark, or hopeless, or out of control our situation may appear, God is still in control and his purposes will prevail. God can be trusted.
Second, we must OBEY GOD. You may have been sitting here this morning thinking to yourself, “Yeah Steve, that sounds good for old Moses, but I’m just little old me.” Well, God may or may not have what you might call a “great” task planned for you, but we must continue to do all the little things he puts before us to do each day. After all, there really are no “small tasks” in God’s kingdom if you think about it. Sure Moses was called to lead the whole nation of Israel out of bondage, but do you think he could have done it if his little sister hadn’t gone to Pharaoh’s daughter? Or if Pharaoh’s daughter hadn’t gone down to take her bath that day?
Obviously we can’t say for sure that either of these people were “obeying God” by doing the things they did, but we can say that when we do feel a prompting from God we need to obey it and go!
Finally, because of what we’ve learned we must STAY ALERT. We’ve got to keep a sharp lookout for opportunities to serve God and others because, as the story of Moses shows, you never know how God plans to use an experience in your life.
I know some of you have seen the movie the Matrix and its recent sequel Reloaded. The movies are a hodge-podge of Zen Buddhism, Christianity, Secular Philosophy and shoot-em-up action. The movies are also extremely difficult to follow. But there is a scene at the end of the first movie where Neo, the Christ-figure is resurrected from the dead and suddenly he can see through the Matrix. He sees through the illusion to the reality behind it. There is a sense in which we are all living in the matrix – a world that is all about appearances and not about the underlying reality. I want to urge you this morning to see behind what is going on around you to God’s purposes – to do so we must be alert to God’s signals because he is sending them to us all the time. Trust him, obey him, and be alert because the story of Moses teaches us that God’s purposes will prevail, and we have a role to play in those purposes and every experience in your life and mine is important. Let’s pray.