Facing Life's Pharaohs

Moses lost credibility with his people and he fled to Midian.

Moses fled to Midian out of fear. He had murdered an Egyptian and buried his body in the sand. But what gets buried doesn't stay buried. Moses' murderous act became known among the Israelites. Whatever the circumstance, it cost Moses credibility among his own people. And when Pharaoh heard about it, he tried to kill Moses.

Do you ever feel like Moses? You've violated your own conscience and wrecked your character. You are painfully aware how you have lost credibility with others. Or perhaps the consequences of your actions are beginning to come full circle. The other shoe is about to drop.

Sometimes when we are scared and don't know what to do, we run. Moses fled to Midian to begin a whole new life. He hoped to gain a fresh start, to leave everything he'd ever known behind, and to escape the consequences of his actions. Running often feels like a solution at first, but it is never is. Some of you have been running your entire lives from something.

Moses wasn't wrong to be enraged about the brutality of the Egyptians. He was wrong to take justice and vengeance in his own hands, to act in the flesh, and to take a human life as a result of his rage, instead of trusting God. Those who act in vengeance often forget that God is in this thing. Those who kill are also acting against God Almighty.

When we run, we don't just run from the bad, we run from the good too. We run from the good works that God has prepared in advance for us to do. In Exodus 2:23-25 (NIV) we see how, "The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God. God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them." The problem was that God had in mind for Moses to be their redeemer-- but Moses had fled!

When we run, God never lets us get away.

The other thing about running is that God never lets us get away. He doesn't let us get away from ourselves, from our enemies, or from God's plan. In Exodus 3:4 (NIV) God arrests Moses' attention in a most curious way. An angel of the Lord appears to Moses in a burning bush and God called out to him, "Moses! Moses!

As Moses approached the bush God said in Exodus 3:5-6 (NIV), " 'Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.' Then he said, 'I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.' At this, Moses his face, because he was afraid
to look at God."

Exodus 3:7-10 (NIV) continues, "I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of the land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey-- the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt." This is God rebuking Moses, reminding him, "This is who I AM."

We get into all sorts of trouble when we forget who God is. Moses killed that Egyptian because he forgot God is just, and vengeance belongs to the Lord. Moses killed that Egyptian because he forgot God's promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He killed that Egyptian because he couldn't comprehend God's mercy, or grace. He could not sense God's power, nor discern that God's rescue mission was underway.

Fear has a way of clouding our judgment.

Fear has a way of clouding our judgment and sabotaging God's plan for our life. But Moses wasn't focusing on who God is. He was consumed with his fears. And this is evident in Moses' response in Exodus 3:11 (NIV). "Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?" Notice that he doesn't ask who is God, but who am I?

And that is the core of our problem. We forget that God is bigger than us, bigger than our anger, our emotions, our feelings, our thirst for vengeance, our pain, the loss, even the impossible circumstance we find ourselves in. We forget how big God is, and we forget that nothing can frustrate God's plan.

Faith grows out of growing clarity and conviction about who God is. Fear grows out of our own sense of inadequacy, and our inability to overcome evil in our own power and strength. Just look at Moses' language in Exodus 3:11 (NIV). "Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh..." And in Exodus 3:13 (NIV) he says, "Suppose I go to the Israelites..."

This isn't the language of faith. This is the language of fear. And the remedy is God saying in Exodus 3:12 (NIV), "I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain." Notice that God says, when, not if.

In Exodus 3:14 (NIV) God tells Moses, "I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are say to the Israelites: 'I AM has sent me to you." In Exodus 3:16-22 God explains how he will bring the Israelites out of Egypt by the power of his outstretched arm. Yet in Exodus 4:1 (NIV) Moses is still saying, "What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, 'The Lord did not appear to you'?"

The real issue is that we must trust God.

You know, the real issue isn't who God is. The real issue is not knowing what God wants, or what he promises to do for us. The issue is trusting God. It's letting go of what we really don't control anyway, and letting God be God. God says, "I AM WHO I AM." I am with you. What more do we really need to know?

But Moses is a stubborn bird. God appears to him in a burning bush. God explains that he is with Moses. God gives Moses careful instructions and explains in detail what is about to happen. In Exodus 4 God causes Moses' staff to become a snake after it is thrown to the ground. He causes Moses' hand to become leprous, and then white as snow when he puts it inside his cloak and pulls it out. But Moses still has excuses. In Exodus 4:10 (NIV) he says, "O Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue." Excuses, excuses, excuses! Just like Moses, we have many.

Again, in Exodus 4:11-12 (NIV) God brings Moses back to who God is. "Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say."

It kind of echoes God's response to Job after Job questioned God. In Job 38:2-4 (NIV) God says, "Who is that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me. Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation?"

But look at Moses response in Exodus 4:13 (NIV). "Oh Lord, please send someone else to do it." It's one thing not to trust God because you're ignorant. It's another thing entirely to not trust God because you're willful and faithless. There are some who will not trust God no matter what he says or what he does.

We have to look past our fear and take God at his word.

It's like the Pharisees in Jesus' day. They kept asking for signs and wonders, but never saw signs and wonders enough. They were stubborn and rebellious, and their hearts were hard because they wanted to stay in their sins. It's like Jesus' hometown of Nazareth, where because of their lack of faith, were told Jesus could not do any miracles there.

It's like the cities Jesus denounces in Matthew 11:21-22 (NIV) when he says, "Woe to you, Korazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you."

God is looking for us to make a response of faith to who he is. But we have to let go of our fear and take him at his word. God is not waiting for someone else to respond on your behalf. He wants you to make a response of faith for yourself, to trust him.

In Exodus 4:24-26 (NIV) we're told, "At a lodging place on the way, the LORD met Moses and was about to kill him. But Zipporah took a flint knife, cut off her son's foreskin and touched Moses' feet with it. 'Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me,' she said. So the Lord let him alone. (At that time she said, 'bridegroom of blood', referring to circumcision).

Now, I am not going to get into a long explanation about circumcision. You wouldn't enjoy it, and I probably wouldn't do that good a job explaining it. Let me just say this-- whatever the circumstance, circumcision was the response God expected of Moses at that time, in that place. And that response of faith was enough to quench God's fury and spare Moses judgment by death.

When God leads, he requires a response of faith.

What begins to emerge here in Exodus 4 is the pattern of God's working. When God leads he requires a response not of fear, but of faith. And however scary the thing is that God wants us to trust him in, it's not as scary as opposing God and facing his wrath.

Moses fled Egypt, but God had him return. When Moses threw his staff to the ground and it became a snake, he fled for his life, but God had him pick the snake up. When Moses pulled his hand out of his cloak, and it was leprous and as white as snow, God had him put it in again to have it fully restored. When Moses cowered in fear at the thought of speaking, God taught him what to say. When Moses was about to face the full wrath of God, it was a response of faith-- in this case a circumcision-- that spared his very life. This pattern held true for Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph too. It's God's pattern, his way of working in our lives and in our world.

In James 1:22 (NIV) we're told, "Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says." In James 2:14 (NIV) we're told, "What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such a faith save him?" In James 2:17 (NIV) we're told, "...faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead." In James 2:22 (NIV) we're told how our faith and actions need to be working together. In James 2:24 (NIV) we're told that a man is justified by what he does and not by faith alone. Faith without works is dead.

Without a response of faith, Moses would have been dead. Without a response of faith, passing through the Red Sea, the Israelites would have died in Egypt. Without a response of faith, trusting God to provide bread and water while they were wandering in the wilderness, the Israelites would have
perished.

Apart from faith, it is impossible to please God.

Everywhere we turn in scripture, we see that God asks us to make a response. He does not expect us to respond in fear, but in faith, trusting God's plan, taking him at his word, and trusting him-- no matter how impossible the circumstance we face.

The most fearsome circumstance we face is death itself. But what does God ask us to do? He invites us to trust him, to die, to be buried, and to be raised to new life. He asks us to come to know him as the resurrection and the life. In regard to baptism, in Romans 6:3-4 (NIV) Paul says, "...don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life."

God has something better, infinitely better and far more glorious for you than anything you can ask or imagine. But this will not happen apart from a response of faith. Without faith it is impossible to please God. Apart from faith you remain in your darkness, sin, and shame.

Name your darkness. Is it financial calamity or economic ruin? Surprise! God asks for a response of faith, a tithe, 10%. It's his prescription, not mine. Are you angry and bitter and vengeful? Surprise! God asks for a response of faith and that you forgive and that you let him be God. It's his prescription, not mine. Are you sexually ruined, or broken relationally? Surprise! God asks for a response of faith and that you live a holy, pure, and upright life. He asks that you keep the marriage bed pure. It's his prescription, not mine.

This morning God invites us to repent of our sins, be baptized, and then receive forgiveness and the gift of the Holy Spirit. You have many fears, excuses, and reasons not to, just like Moses did. But those excuses are no good to you now.