I invite you to turn this morning to the second book of the Bible, the book of Exodus, as we continue our study in the book of Exodus, and this morning we come to chapter 2, verses 11 to the end of the chapter. 11 to the end of the chapter. Last time we considered the birth of Moses, And now we consider his flight to Midian. This is verse 11 of Exodus chapter 2. This is God's holy word. One day when Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and looked on their burdens. And he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his people. He looked this way and that and seeing no one, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. When he went out the next day, behold, two Hebrews were struggling together, and he said to the man in the wrong, why do you strike your companion? He answered, who made you a prince and judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian? Then Moses was afraid and thought, surely this thing is known. When Pharaoh heard of it, he sought to kill Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh and stayed in the land of Midian, and he sat down by a well. Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came out and drew water and filled the troughs to water their father's flock. The shepherds came and drove them away, but Moses stood up and saved them and watered their flock. When they came home to their father, Reuel, he said, how is it that you have come home so soon today? They said, an Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds and even drew water for us and watered the flock he said to his daughters then where is he why have you left the man call him that he may eat bread and Moses was content to dwell with the man and he gave Moses his daughter Zipporah she gave birth to a son and he called his name Gershom for he said I have been a sojourner in a foreign land during those many days the king of Egypt died and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God, and God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and Jacob. God saw the people of Israel, and God knew. May the Lord bless the hearing of his word. I know throughout the course of my ministry that I have had many people struggle with that question that the psalms raise often why oh lord why do these things happen and why are you silent and why do you seem to be doing nothing to deal with these great problems in our lives i'm sure we all have felt that you all have struggled with that particularly the feeling of his his silence his silence what i've noticed is that is that the way that we kind of cope with that the way that we deal with that is just to generally accept well then that's just the way things are that's the way things have to be god knows what he's doing um i just have to be content with that he's on the throne and we're left sort of thinking i think at times and i've been guilty of presenting it this way as if it just has to be that way and god's kind of idle up there god's kind of idle through this whole thing and i just have to accept it and therefore we have no real answers as we go through as i worked through this text this week i thought that's that's really unfair to our lord it's really unfair to spin it as if he's just sitting up there and lets us go through all these things and leaving it feeling like he's just idle and giving no answer to what he's doing. Why do I say that? Because Jesus said something powerful about his work and his Father's work. Remember? My Father is working until now and I'm working. We're doing something. And I thought a lot about that, you know, that God created and then rested on the seventh day and the sense you have is as soon as the fall happened, he got up. He got to work. And the son got to work. Doing what? Well, what has been so encouraging as we study Exodus is to see through all these catastrophic events, through all of these distressing events, through all of this persecution, you see God's fingerprints everywhere throughout all of this his fingerprints have been everywhere in this text in the darkest moments of history you see him working look at him working today you say what's he doing in the midst of my distress what's he doing in the midst of my hardship well i want you to notice the context here that pharaoh has been desperately trying to stamp out the people of god and he's assaulting their babies remember we looked at this for the last few weeks they were being thrown into the nile and yet god has done something god has pulled somebody out of the nile god has raised a son up out of the nile riding on a paper boat among the crocodiles he was not only taken from out of the nile but pharaoh now is raising up and training his own conqueror that's just amazing now what i want us to think about for a moment is that israel pause for that scene for a minute israel doesn't see any of that you'll notice we have a shifting of scenes here this morning and in verse 23 you read that during those many days i want you to say well how long how long did israel sit there in their bondage during those many days the king of egypt died and the people of israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help their cry for rescue from slavery came up to god during those many days how many days was that put it together for a minute moses lived to be 120 years old if you were to divide up moses's life you would divide it into three sections of his life acts chapter 7 tells us that he was 40 years old when he killed the man in our text 40 years old right now acts 7 then says when 40 years had passed an angel of the lord appeared to him in a burning bush that's next week put it together moses would go back to deliver israel at 80 years old 80 that's pretty remarkable isn't it and you stop and you look at that all this time of groaning here intense groaning of persecution from the time that moses was born you at least have and we know this was a 400 year groan but but but you in the intensity of it magnifying to the point for 80 years of intense groaning by god's people do you ever feel that question when is this all going to end i mean things just keep going as they always have since the beginning of the world is it ever really going to end is anything really going on I've struggled with that I think we all struggle with that we get up in the morning and we just have another day you ever stop and think one day it will end why was it that way let me give you a reason this morning I think we can have a reason. I think the text shows us a reason. They all needed to be in God's schoolhouse for a while. Israel needed to groan. They needed to understand their need. They needed to understand the salvation of the Lord. They needed to trust him. They needed to cry a little bit. They needed to groan. They needed to desire the right things. They needed to see God's salvation and power. They needed to see God's judgment on His enemies. All those things. This morning, though, I'm going to focus on another training camp. God needed to train His deliverer. And God in this passage is particularly focusing us on his training of Moses. That when the deliverance would come, it would be powerful and beautiful all in its perfect time. Well, our story today zeroes in on Moses. That's where we are. Zeroes in on Moses, whom God has now taken out of the Nile. And the section here this morning has the purpose of showing us that Moses begins a kind of extended boot camp, if you will. I remember when I was studying as a pastor, I remember reading an author who said, Don't you dare approach the pulpit ministry without first having been converted yourself and to be able to preach these sermons to yourself. And I thought that always stuck with me. And it made me tremble. I have to preach this to me. I understood that the pulpit ministry was a calling that you have to, in some sense, stand in the counsel of God and have that confirmed and to be sent by God. In other words, this was a calling from God Himself. Well, what we find in this text is the Old Testament calling of a real prophet that's beginning to happen. And God is dealing with certain things in the life of Moses that needed to be dealt with. What you somewhat have in this first section is a young, idealistic, overambitious, prideful young man. And you say, really? This was the most humble man on the face of the earth. Not initially. It took 40 years to get him out into the wilderness. 80 years to instruct him and train him for this great call. so i came up with three things uh today that moses had to learn before he could go out and deliver israel and let me say this is basic to every servant of christ every servant the first is he had to leave Egypt himself he had to leave Egypt himself look at verse 11 one day when Moses had grown up he went out to his people and looked at their burdens I don't want to miss that moment what you'll notice if you were carefully looking at all the words in this text in this early section is that everything Israel will later go through Moses is going through he's passed through the water he's been on the Nile he's heading out into the wilderness he's living first the life of Israel and that the author who is Moses is choosing all the same words that would later be used to describe Israel's exodus out of Egypt and the first great word that's used here you'll notice here in verse one is he went out he went out same word later to describe Israel going out of Egypt now keep in mind he was raised in Pharaoh's household he was raised by Pharaoh's daughter he was a prince of Egypt he had everything but notice it says he went out now i wouldn't make a big deal of that if hebrews 11 did not make a big deal of that and in hebrews chapter 11 this this scene makes it into the hall of faith in fact it's that very wording that the writer to the author of hebrews picks up when he says this by faith moses when he was grown up refused to be called the son of pharaoh's daughter choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of god than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin he considered the reproach of christ greater than wealth than the trade greater wealth than the treasures of egypt for he was looking to the reward by faith he left egypt not being afraid of the anger of the king For he endured as seeing him who is invisible. What an amazing statement of Moses in Hebrews chapter 11. Hebrews says, by faith he left Egypt. But it was more than just a physical leaving. I asked last week at the end of the sermon when I preached, have you come out of Egypt? And you said, well, what do you mean by that? have a what do you mean have you come out well you've heard it all your life i am the lord your god who brought you out of the land of egypt do you think that applies to you have you come out what does that mean well i want you to notice here that the system and and we're going to see this with egypt the egypt is is is representative of of the world and and the system of the world that the world gripped in darkness the principle on which this world operates is that of darkness and i want you to notice what the text is showing us moses went out before he went out what do i mean he left it in his heart and you see it described in hebrews hebrews as as he was pharaoh's daughter he was a prince he had every pleasure he had every social status he could ever want he is no holds barred to anything he wanted in egypt sexual pleasure spiritual pluralism hedonism narcissism you had every kind of pleasure under the sun and notice how hebrews says he chose something else chose it the scriptures have constantly portrayed these two paths Jesus told us about the narrow path and the wide path one leads to destruction and the other leads to life John said listen don't don't love the path or the things in the world the lust of the flesh the lust of the eyes and the pride of life it's not from the father but it's of the world and it's all passing it's all passing pleasures of sin he said well what does that look like to leave Egypt? What does it look like to leave Egypt? If you're saying, Pastor, okay, I understand somewhat what you're saying, but you need to give me something concrete. I'll give it to you. What's the first thing that it says to prove that Moses came out of Egypt? I want everyone to look back again at verse 11. One day when Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and looked at their burdens. The text is showing us a great separation. He chose to be, says Hebrews, mistreated with who? God's people. He chose to be with them. He chose to leave the palace and to be there. you say, well, how do I know I've come out? When people are pursuing their own paths and their own pleasures in whatever form it takes, what begins to change? Or where is the last place they want to be? Right here. They don't want to really be with God's people. It's viewed as a kind of slavery. It's viewed as something that's holding us back. That's the devil's lie in saying, listen, the Egyptian path is so much better. And God's people being with these people, I mean, there's nothing outwardly glorious about any of this. There's nothing that's easy about any of this. Nobody looks at the Escondido URC and says, wow, there's a lot going on there in the world. nothing wherever god's people are i want you to know they won't be valued they'll be mistreated they'll be ridiculed what does that look like i can generally tell when someone is spirit where spiritually they are about their attitude to the church which is the body of christ i can tell whether they're really out of egypt or not it's their attitude and their love for the people of god wanting to be there anyone who's not come out has no real heart for the people so you ask the question and that was you know one of the things that i had to learn coming out was a value of the church, a value of God's people, a value of being where they are. That didn't come naturally. Who do you associate with and what's your attitude toward your brothers and sisters? Do you really want to be here? Or does it really seem like just something I'm doing? Anyone who is ever going to be useful to the Master in service so that their heart is in it has to come out of Egypt. That's where your molding begins. That's where the molding starts to take shape. That's where you're beginning to be molded as one of God's separate people. And in fact, that's why it's so dangerous to put in people into service who haven't come out. they really don't want to be in it. Moses left it. Moses got out, and he considered it a treasure to be identified with the reproach of Christ. I'm going to come back to that in a minute. That was the first work of God in Moses' heart. Let's get to the second. The second was this. Moses had to learn that the victory would not be achieved by his power. Moses had to learn that the victory would not be achieved by his power. We have something really shocking in this preparation that now takes place. We read in verse 11, Now there's a lot of ink spilled as to whether Moses was justified in doing this. and I take the position, that's clear sin. You don't go like this and you don't go like this and then strike and bury if it's okay. But I want you to think about something here. Acts 7 gives us insight into what he was thinking. Stephen says when he was 40 years old, it came into his heart to visit his brothers, the children of Israel, and seeing one of them being wrong, he defended the oppressed man and avenged him by striking down the Egyptian. He supposed that his brothers would understand that God was giving them salvation by his hand, but they did not understand. What did Moses believe? He believed he was the deliverer. And seeing an injustice, let's get the project started. Let's get going. And so he goes out and he tries to do the saving himself. and he only knocks down one. He sees an oppressed man. Notice, and you are starting to get into the character of Moses here a little bit. He's troubled by the oppression, and he was correct in that. He was right in that. He was right that he would be the deliverer. But you know what? His heart was in the right place, but it was not God's timing. How did it go for him? Well, we read that he goes out the next day, and behold, two Hebrews are fighting. and they're having, they're duking it out, and he says to the man, why are you striking your companion? He said, who made you a prince and judge over us? You mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian? And Moses was afraid and thought, surely this thing is known. When Pharaoh heard it, he sought to kill Moses. What do you have in the training of Moses? Great failure. And I want you to think about that for a moment. Moses was the one to deliver Israel, but he had not yet been called to it. The burning bush had not happened. He had not been stood in the presence of God. If you're going into the, this would be like somebody going into the pastoral ministry and acting like they had the call before they had the call. God was letting Moses fail. He needed to be humbled. He needed to learn that the strength of deliverance would never come from his power or his own might. And oh, do we all have to learn that in the Christian life. Every one of you needs to learn that. God says to him at the burning bush, I will deliver. I've seen the affliction of my people. I know their sufferings. Listen to this. I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of the land to a good and broad land. It's me, Moses. I'm doing this. You're my vessel. But it's my hand, my power, my glory. You ever stop and think that's exactly what we need in our training as Christians? Is to fail and learn that? You need to feel your weakness. Moses needed to feel his weakness. Moses needed to fall upon the Lord. He needed to understand his frailty. He needed to fear is what he needed to do. He had none. Sometimes we're so overconfident. Our hearts may be in the right place. We're going to go do the work of the Lord, but you have not submitted to His way or His timing. And that goes with so many facets of life. Moses needed to learn something. Notice here the greatest challenge he will ever face is leading a bunch of grumbling, bumbling, mumbling Israelites out in the wilderness. And do you notice that that's the very thing that happens right now? Who are you? Who are you to lead? Are you some prince over us? He's going to experience that his whole life. And it's these kind of things that trained him to be known as the most humble man on the face of the earth. Whose strength do we go in to do anything for the Lord? Whose strength? Until you learn that, until your pride is torn down, until you're confronted with just how weak you are, You're not ready. And that leads me to the third thing he needed to learn. What did God do for him? Well, now God, now think of your God. Israel's groaning over here. God is working on this man. Now he sends Moses out for a 40-year boot camp in the wilderness. 40 years of training. It's amazing. He becomes a shepherd. That's the third thing. He had to become a shepherd. Pharaoh hears what Moses has done. He's rejected Egypt. He's rejected his mom in Egypt. His position as a prince. He's identified with slaves. He's not taken the Egyptian life. He's now a marked man. He is a marked man. We read in verse 15. But Moses fled from Pharaoh and stayed in the land of Midian. From the courts in the palace of Pharaoh all the way now into wilderness life for 40 years of wilderness life. Isn't that something? 40 years. Who's going there for 40 years? Israel. He's going to lead them. But he's got to learn that wilderness himself. He's got to become a shepherd. It's fascinating to me what the Lord's doing in this man's life. None of this was natural to Moses. it was intense training and he had to go learn where's water found in the wilderness do you know how hard wilderness life is they say that lawrence of arabia tried to to to retrace the steps of moses said it was one of the worst experiences that wilderness was awful 40 years training god is so patiently and crafting this man to lead his people out and now he has to learn the wilderness. Who's prepared for wilderness life? None of you. Do you think, do you think Israel sitting, eating all those years in Egypt and sitting there with the pots of meat that they will say is ready for wilderness life? So interesting to me that before Paul was called, he went out into the Arabian desert for a time. He was trained. What does he learn what's the first presentation of him out in the wilderness well it says that back in um in verse 11 that something was going on in the heart of moses did you notice the first thing that it said and i'm emphasizing now that god was training him to become a shepherd how did he become a shepherd the first thing it says is when he went out to his people he did what he looked at their burdens he heads out into the wilderness and there were these seven daughters uh raul who is jethro the shepherds came the shepherds come and they're abusing these women probably um did all the drawing of the water these women did all the drawing of the water and the shepherds came and shoved him aside and took the water. I mean, just cruel. And there's Moses. Moses rose up. This is a man. He's leading. Put it together. You're seeing character. He's focusing on the burdens of others and now he's seeing the helpless. He's seeing the helpless and he becomes a helper of the helpless. He's courageous. He rises up in defense of these poor women among the wolves and draws their water. What a path, if you think about it. He leaves Egypt, leaves the palace. And he's focused on the burdens. And now he's out in the wilderness and he's becoming a servant, learning to love others. Carrying their burdens. Anyone who ever takes up the servant of Christ will never be until he cares of others. This is why Christ said to Peter, Do you love me? Feed my sheep. You ever notice Peter's path? Called away from the fishing business, goes through a massive failure in his life, I'll never deny you, denies him something terribly, and then at the end has to learn what it's all about. Three things. Called out, learning your failures, who to trust, becoming a shepherd. How many burdens do the sheep have? This is not just for the shepherds. It's all of us. He cared for the sheep. But there's something else. He goes into Jethro's house, a direct descendant of Abraham, by the way, of god's fingerprints you're going to get a wife from the daughters of abraham if you will he became a shepherd but then notice he has a son and says in verse 22 she bore son and called his name gershom why for he said i've been a stranger in a foreign lamb gershom means stranger there where well some say right there but i i believe his he's naming his son confessing i am a stranger and have always been a stranger in egypt and that gets to what hebrews is telling us about these people of the old testament that they confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth going somewhere moses grew up in the palaces of egypt and went from glory to rags in other words now is saying i'm a stranger and i'm going somewhere else every servant must know that by the end of this he's 80 years old he's been out in a prolonged boot camp he's left egypt he's become a pilgrim he's learned that service would be done in the lord's strength he's become a shepherd to bear the burdens and deliver them from bondage and in the next scene which is so exciting he's going to finally learn his god now i suppose i want to initially just pause before next week because i'm really excited about the burning bush i want to begin to put this together for us if it took moses 80 years to be prepared for this calling we need to realize that we're never mastered or we've never mastered being in god's school you've never graduated from his school that's why i thought ephesians 4 is so powerful this i say therefore and testify in the lord you should no longer walk as the rest of the gentiles walk in the futility of their mind having their understanding dark and being alienated from the life of god because of the ignorance that's in them because of the blindness of their heart who being past feeling they've done all these things they've given themselves over to lewdness to work all in cleanness with greediness. Here it is. But you have not so learned Christ. If, indeed, I'm assuming that you've heard Him and have been taught by Him as the truth is in Jesus that you put off concerning your former conduct. Did you hear what motivated the whole new life? Learning Christ. You never get out of that school while you're still living, no matter what age you are. You never get out. You never graduate from doctrine. You never graduate from knowledge. You never graduate from growing in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is what eternity. You're going to be learning him. But here's what's tragic. Darcy has an uncle. His name was Don. He died and I visited him numerous times trying to witness to him he was an atheist. Do you know what he said the reason is that he didn't want to go to church? Why would I go there? It's all the same thing. All you guys do is talk about Jesus. Do you know that mindset is atheism? It comes from an atheist's mouth himself who died in atheism. That attitude is out of the pit of an atheist's mouth. We can remain in spiritual infancy. The Hebrew says, for everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness for he's a babe. I am so weary of a church today in our culture that is on nothing. Listen, the reason, let me put this together, the reason people are often ineffective in their service and the reason ministries don't receive the blessing of the Lord, if you will, the reason people are ineffective is because they act like they've graduated from the school of Christ and there's no more desire to learn. One of the worst things I've seen is an attitude against any continued growth. Listen, I know catechism may have been taught poorly in the past, but it's not an enemy to us. It's God's truth. it's how you learn him and everywhere i go i see this attitude of all catechism's bad catechism's bad or you know worship and i think really are we growing in the knowledge of christ moses's next school stop is the burning bush and he's got to learn a lot of doctrine he's got to learn a lot about the holiness of god that's when it hits the head and takes root in the heart now i agree with you calvin's right it can't just hop around in the top part of the head but it's got to take root in the heart and we have to have a hunger and thirsting to know him and to grow him this is eternal life that you know me said jesus one author said our weakness does not allow us to be dismissed from her school talking about the church until we've been pupils all our lives. And it was Martha who was mad because Mary wasn't getting up and serving. And Mary sat there and Jesus said, you see Martha, we all have to start here. The story this morning is not ultimately about what you can do for God. I think that's part of the problem today. That's what we're all talking about. What I can do for God. It's ultimately about what the Lord's doing for you. Because you've got two million people groaning right now who are stuck. And you see, back in Egypt, these people have been groaning and crying out and their cries are coming up to God. And that's a schoolhouse in and of itself. And verse 24 says something we should be so moved by. So God remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And to which all you should say, uh-oh, Egypt's in deep doo-doo. Every time it says God remembered His covenant, you got a Sodom and Gomorrah-like event. Every time it said that, you had the flood-like event. Now they're in trouble. God's ready to act. God's ready to go get them. That's what God does here in the process of time and think now about the whole story in the process of time god did this god sent his son and this little baby in the in the manger and he puts him into this mess and he sent him and says out of egypt i called my own son and that child grew in wisdom and in stature filled with wisdom the favor of god was upon him for 30 years while israel groaned he worked as a Wood carpenter, by the way. I have little information about what he did during that time. And I know he's true God. And so the same kind of training doesn't parallel of what Moses needed, of what Jesus needed. But I know this, he didn't get out there until the Spirit fell upon him and he was anointed. And then that building project started and it was glorious. Out of Egypt I called my son. He never took anything into His own hands. He was always concerned about whose will? My Father's. He never acted independently of that will. Moses shows you the Son of God. Oh, He was a shepherd. This was a shepherd. He carried your burdens and your sorrows all the way to the cross. Isaiah 53, Surely He has borne our sorrows and afflictions, carried them. he looked upon his his brethren in the multitudes with what compassion he always loved the sheep he was out there defending the helpless and then one day he walks up to a woman at the well who had been abused by five men think of the scene five men and he frees her from that bondage and rescues her and then you remember at the beginning of his ministry he goes out into the wilderness for how long 40 days to be tempted by the devil tempted and tested and tried and he comes out victorious and then after carrying your burdens and sorrows all the way to the cross and defeating the devil and plunging him into the red sea by the way revelation talks about that he's committed to lead you home I come back to where I started you groan, you groan in the wilderness you groan, you think he's not doing anything look what he's done look what your father did the father and the son and the spirit they have worked hard and they're still working and he's going to come back one day and he's going to bring you to Canaan so i say to you this morning learn him learn that story see him in his compassion see him gently lead you in the wilderness by streams of living water learn what he's done for you become overwhelmed with that and then you will be ready to serve others with hearts that have come truly out of Egypt. Until then, you're still too confident in yourself. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank You for being so committed to Your project. And forgive us for hardened hearts that as we saw, unless You were doing a mighty work, we wouldn't value this. We would think this is foolishness. We really wouldn't want to be here. And if there's anyone who's not come out of Egypt and feels that way, I pray that You'd confront them greatly and bring them out and draw out repentance and faith. And let us realize how weak we are and how much we need Your grace and strength. And then train us all to become servants of others, caring for each other, loving one another since we've learned our Savior who did this for us. And thank You, Lord, for caring to do this. you're so kind and compassionate to us and our attitude to you has been, oh, we've learned all this before. Shame on us. The depths of your Word are something we'll never be able to plummet in our life. And so let us hunger and thirst after that Word and your righteousness. And then we will be the kind of servants having learned Christ that bear and love others with real effectiveness. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.